strands as they broke. Two inch-long cuts on his chest and a deeper,
longer one on his foreleg was the price Johnny paid, and that was all.
The lower wire he never touched, since it was a leap that landed him
against the fence. He lurched and recovered himself, and went on at a
slower gallop while Applehead beckoned the three to come on.

"I kain't say I'd want to git in the habit uh bustin' fences that way,"
he grinned over his shoulder as the three jumped through the gap he had
made and forged up to him. "But I calc'late if they's another one Johnny
n' me kin make it, mebby."

"Well, I was brought up in a barbed wire country," Pink exploded, "but
I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like that pulled off before!"

"We-ell, I hed a bronk go hog-wild 'n' pop three wires on a fence one
time," Applehead explained modestly, "'n' he didn't cut hisself a-tall,
skurcely. It's all accordin' t' how yuh hit it, I reckon. Anyway, I
calc'lated it was wuth tryin', 'cause we shore woulda had our hands
full if we'd a stopped at that fence, now I'm tellin' yuh! 'N' another
thing," he added bodefully, "I figgured we'd better be gittin' to Luck
In' his bunch. I calc'late they need us, mebby."

No one made any reply to that statement, but even Lite, who never had
been inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with a new respect.
The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably
close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a
closer group than before, shooting as they rode--at the four men first,
and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire
left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They
succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, but that was all.

Three hundred yards or so in the lead, the four raced down the long,
gentle slope. A mile or two, perhaps three, they could run before their
horses gave out. But then, when they could run no longer, they would
have to stop and fight; and the question that harped continually through
their minds was: Could they run until they reached Luck and the boys
with him? Could they? They did not even know where Luck was, or
what particular angle of direction would carry them to him quickest.
Applehead and Johnny were pointing the way, keeping a length ahead of
the others. But even old Applehead was riding, as he would have put it,
"by-guess and by-gosh" until they crossed a shallow draw, labored up th