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 celerity of an eagle from his rock, going on over the fence supremely immune from its threatening barbs.

Peck spread like a frog on the leap, or a breaststroke swimmer exemplifying his art. So spread, he came down on his narrow breast-bone in the top of an inhospitable bush, at the exact moment when the fence-rider broke from the shrubbery which fringed the brow of the hill.

Peck's horse gathered himself from the shock of his sudden stop, starting up the fence in the direction of his friends on the outside. Seeing him heading right, Tippie wheeled around and started back toward the cut in the wires, there being no time, under the fence-rider's gun, to make a new opening for the swift little creature that had carried Peck to safe ground and unloaded him.

"Head him off at the gap!" Tippie shouted, neck and neck with Rawlins, the roan coming on hot-foot after them, closing up on them surprisingly. He surely was a corner, Rawlins thought, and he had all the reason in the world for stretching himself and keeping it up. The fence-guard was after him, rifle put away for rope, determined to have the horse, having lost the man.

"Cut in there and head him—he's so scairt he'll pass it!" Tippie yelled, his voice breaking high, his mouth open as he rode.

Rawlins pushed ahead of him, the little roan abreast inside the wire, the fence-rider not more than a hundred yards behind. But no need to rush about heading that little horse off and turning him through the gap. He beat them all to it, knowing where it was as well as