Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/296

 off to the west. They were horsemen coming at full tilt toward the cabin. Hardly had she caught sight of this prodigy when the three dropped out of sight behind a swale and over the crest of the divide behind them swept more dots. Hilma counted ten. More horsemen, and they were burning the wind. In a minute they, too, were hidden by the rise of a nearer swell in the land.

She sat on Christian's back puzzling an explanation for this sudden appearance of life and action in the unpeopled spaces. Then, topping the crest of a long slope leading down to her own cabin, appeared the three horsemen in advance. Two of them were riding bent low over their saddles; a third, a little back of abreast, sat stiffly upright and rode somewhat clumsily. Hilma hastily dismounted, sensing that somehow she was to be involved in this hurricane of action. Just as the ten following horsemen appeared on the crest of the hill and a jet of white smoke puffed out before one of them, the three in advance thundered straight into the dooryard.

Two threw themselves to the ground and raced to the side of the third. Him they dragged without gentleness from his saddle.