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 ing down the slope into the bushes, dodging the thick clumps like a rabbit. He was traveling independent of Peck, whose wishes in the course he ignored, if Peck had any thought in that emergency except the one of putting space between himself and that gun. The course the horse was shaping would bring Peck to the fence a long distance from the hole.

Seeing how it was to terminate, Tippie kicked his horse forward, signalling Rawlins to follow. The fence-rider popped up that second as if he had been produced by a trick, taking a crack at Peck from the top of the hill, darting down after him as hot as a hornet.

"He'll corner him and take that horse!" Tippie shouted to Rawlins, who was scrambling to overtake him. "We've got to beat him to it and git that gun of mine!"

Maybe they could do it, maybe they couldn't, Rawlins thought. It all depended on the way Peck's horse took a notion to turn when it struck the fence. Peck had a good lead on his pursuer; his horse appeared to be as fully conscious of its peril as anybody around there. If it happened to head their way when it struck the fence, Tippie could grab his gun from Peck, they could slash a hole and let him through.

They lost sight of the race as they scurried down the slope into a grassy dip, but Rawlins knew Peck was still up and traveling by the report of the rifle that reached them as they rode silently across the spongy ground in that little hollow of green. They clawed up the steep ridge before them, reaching the top to see Peck shoot into a clear spot several hundred