Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/259

 the distance was now short and neither man spared his mount. Vermont reached his destination first. Half an hour later the BarT foreman saw Harmon’s horse swing round a bend. The horse was lathered and running hard. The foreman spoke to the man who had been detailed to wrangle the horses for the day.

“Run ’em in,” he said. The wrangler mounted and whirled up the valley.

“Every man throw his saddle on a horse,” the foreman ordered. “One of you catch up a fresh horse for Harmon. We’re about to make a ride.”

Ten minutes later Harmon and the twelve BarT men were pouring down the valley. Just before dusk they turned into the bottoms of the Thoroughfare. Harmon noted tufts of grass and dirt loosened by the feet of running horses.

“Vermont’s men are ahead of us,” he said, “and going strong.”

Back on the rims, Kinney and Moran watched the trail which angled down the cliff until too dark to see. Three men had gone up to the pocket during the day but not one had left it.

With the coming of dusk Flash felt the restless urge to be off; to get back to Betty and the cabin which was home to him. Moran wrote a brief