his feet and
laid the still unconscious Molly on the grass behind a gray and
barkless windfall that had once been a hundred-foot fir.

Then he removed his horse farther back among the stubs where it could
not be seen, took his Winchester from the scabbard under the left
fender and went back to the edge of the slide to start a return
argument with the individual who had for the last ten minutes been
endeavouring to kill him.

CHAPTER XXIX

HUE AND CRY

"Did you hit him?"

"I don't think so," replied Racey without turning his head. "Keep
down."

"I am down."

"How you feel?"

"Pretty good--considering."

"Close squeak--considerin'."

"Yes," said she in a small voice, "it was a close squeak. You--you
saved my life, Racey."

"Shucks," he said, much embarrassed, "that wasn't anythin'--I
mean--you--you know what I mean."

"Surely, I know what you mean. All the same, you saved my life. Tell
me, was that man shooting at us all the time after I fainted until you
got me under cover?"

"Not all the time, no."

"But most of the time. Oh, you can make small of it, but you were very
brave. It isn't everybody would have stuck the way you did."

Smack! Tchuck! A bullet struck a rock two feet below where Racey lay
on his stomach, his rifle-barrel poked out between two shrubs of
smooth sumac--another bored the hole of a gray stub at his back.

He fired quickly at the first puff of smoke, then sent two bullets a
little to the left of the centre of the second puff.

"Not much chance of hittin' the first feller," he said to Molly. "He's
behind a log, but that second sport is behind a bush same as me....
Huh? Oh, I'm all right. I got the ground in front of me. He
hasn't. Alla same, we ain't stayin' here any longer. I think I saw
half-a-dozen gents cuttin' across the end of the slide. Give 'em time
and they'll cut in behind us, which ain't part of my plans a-tall.
Let's go."

He crawfished backward on his hands and knees. Molly followed his
example. When they were sufficiently far back to be able to stand
upright with safety they scrambled to their feet and hurried to the
horse.

"I'll lead him for a while," said Racey, giving Molly a leg up, for
the horse was a tall one. "He won't have to carry double just yet."

So, with Racey walking ahead, they resumed their retreat.

The ridge of rock cutting across the burned-over area could not
properly be called rimrock. It was a different formation. Set at an
a