seman,
and now it appeared the two raiders were between Lash above on the
stony slope and Ladd below on the level. There was desperate riding on
part of the raiders to keep from being hemmed in closer. Only one of
them got away, and he came riding for life down under the eastern wall.
Blanco Sol settled into his graceful, beautiful swing. He gained
steadily, though he was far from extending himself. By Gale's actual
count the raider fired eight times in that race down the valley, and
all his bullets went low and wide. He pitched the carbine away and lost
all control in headlong flight.

Some few hundred rods to the left of Gale the raider put his horse to
the weathered slope. He began to climb. The horse was superb,
infinitely more courageous than his rider. Zigzag they went up and up,
and when Ladd reached the edge of the slope they were high along the
cracked and guttered rampart. Once--twice Ladd raised the long rifle,
but each time he lowered it. Gale divined that the ranger's restraint
was not on account of the Mexican, but for that valiant and faithful
horse. Up and up he went, and the yellow dust clouds rose, and an
avalanche rolled rattling and cracking down the slope. It was beyond
belief that a horse, burdened or unburdened, could find footing and
hold it upon that wall of narrow ledges and inverted, slanting gullies.
But he climbed on, sure-footed as a mountain goat, and, surmounting the
last rough steps, he stood a moment silhouetted against the white sky.
Then he disappeared. Ladd sat astride Blanco Sol gazing upward. How
the cowboy must have honored that raider's brave steed!

Gale, who had been too dumb to shout the admiration he felt, suddenly
leaped up, and his voice came with a shriek:

"LOOK OUT, LADDY!"

A big horse, like a white streak, was bearing down to the right of the
ranger. Blanco Diablo! A matchless rider swung with the horse's
motion. Gale was stunned. Then he remembered the first raider, the
one Lash had shot at and driven away from the outlet. This fellow had
made for the mesquite and had put a saddle on Belding's favorite. In
the heat of the excitement, while Ladd had been intent upon the
climbing horse, this last raider had come down with the speed of the
wind straight for the western outlet. Perhaps, very probably, he did
not know Gale was there to block it; and certainly he hoped to pass
Ladd and Blanco Sol.

A touch of the spur made Sol lunge forward to head o