Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/201



LDEN PAYNE and Jethro Mix stared in silence for several seconds. Then the terrified negro gasped in a husky voice:

“Lets run like blazes!”

The appeal roused his master. He glanced from the pony and the prostrate rider to the opposite bluffs, and at every hiding place of an enemy in his field of vision. Since the tragedy had taken place within the last few minutes, the criminal could not be far off.

There was the vast, precipitous gorge along the side of which wound the broad path that had been traversed by hundreds of men and animals, and along which the Express Riders had galloped at headlong speed times without number. There were scores of places among the towering rocks and piles of stone that would hide a host of miscreants from sight. The fatal arrow might have been launched from any one of them, and the youth could 191