ne!

Ralston shot to cripple the horse, but almost with the flash they were
around the bend of the creek and out of sight. The breathless, speechless
seconds seemed minutes long before he heard Babe coming.

"Aw-w-w!" roared that person in consternation and chagrin, as he literally
dragged the horses behind him.

Ralston ran to meet him, and a glance of understanding passed between them
as he leaped into the saddle and swept around the bend like a whirlwind,
less than thirty seconds behind Smith.

Babe knew that he must secure Tubbs before he joined in the pursuit, and
he was pulling the rawhide riata from his saddle when Tubbs, inspired by
Smith's example and imbued with the hysterical courage which sometimes
comes to men of his type in desperate straits, made a dash for his rifle,
and reached it. He threw it to his shoulder, but, quick as he was, Babe
was quicker.

[Illustration: SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!]

With the lightning-like gesture which had made his name a byword where
Babe himself was unknown, he pulled his six-shooter from its holster and
shot Tubbs through the head. He fell his length, like a bundle of
blankets, and, even as he dropped, Babe was in the saddle and away.

It was a desperate race that was on, between desperate men; for if Smith
was desperate, Ralston was not less so. Every fibre of his being was
concentrated in the determination to recapture the man who had twice
outwitted him. The deputy sheriff's reputation was at stake; his pride and
self-respect as well; and the blood-thirst was rising in him with each
jump of his horse. Every other emotion paled, every other interest faded,
beside the intensity of his desire to stop the man ahead of him.

Smith knew that he had only a chance in a thousand. He had seen Ralston
with a six-shooter explode a cartridge placed on a rock as far away as he
could see it, and he was riding the little brown mare whose swiftness
Smith had reason to remember.

But he had the start, his bronco was young, its wind of the best, and it
might have speed. The country was rough, Ralston's horse might fall with
him. So long as Smith was at liberty there was a fighting chance, and as
always, he took it.

The young horse, mad with fright, kept to the serpentine course of the
creek-bottom, and Ralston, on the little mare, sure-footed and swift as a
jack-rabbit, followed its lead.

The race was like a steeple-chase, with boulders and brus