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 ready to hand if needed. Noah's gun still hung on the saddle, but it was under the horse; the other gun was gone, jolted out on that last tight run. This Simpson saw in a glance as he flattened out behind the horse.

The horse had a broken foreleg, clipped by a rifle bullet. It was lying on the disabled member, and now began to make a heaving, frantic struggle to get up. Tom grabbed the reins and tried to turn the creature's head for a quieting shot. As he tugged, a bullet struck the horse's head not a span from his own, killing it instantly.

There appeared to be more caution than valor in that band of horsethieves. They were not keen to rush Simpson and dislodge him from the shelter of his fallen horse. He lay waiting for them, not risking to show his head, filling up his magazine. For a few moments their firing stopped, then there was a rush of horses and they came tearing past, off a cautious distance, riding like mad one behind the other, pouring in their lead as they went.

Simpson threw a shot at the leader and made a jump for it to change sides of the horse before the other two came directly opposite. As he went over a bullet hit the rifle, the reamed particles of lead, red-hot they felt, striking his hand. He flopped down on the other side. The three of them went tearing past, on their way to help their companion turn the horses back, Tom supposed. They knew he could not get very far away.

He was wrong in that surmise. Horse or no horse, they were not going to leave him there alive. They were circling him, closing in as they came this time, one of them an Indian, surely the very Indian he had seen for a second in that cabin door. Tom squirmed up to face them, dis-