ntly Duane looked back. Pursuers--he could not count how
many--were loping along in his rear. He paid no more attention to them,
and with teeth set he faced ahead, grimmer now in his determination to
foil them.

He passed a few scattered ranch-houses where horses whistled from
corrals, and men curiously watched him fly past. He saw one rancher
running, and he felt intuitively that this fellow was going to join in
the chase. Duane's steed pounded on, not noticeably slower, but with a
lack of former smoothness, with a strained, convulsive, jerking stride
which showed he was almost done.

Sight of the village ahead surprised Duane. He had reached it sooner
than he expected. Then he made a discovery--he had entered the zone of
wire fences. As he dared not turn back now, he kept on, intending to
ride through the village. Looking backward, he saw that his pursuers
were half a mile distant, too far to alarm any villagers in time to
intercept him in his flight. As he rode by the first houses his horse
broke and began to labor. Duane did not believe he would last long
enough to go through the village.

Saddled horses in front of a store gave Duane an idea, not by any means
new, and one he had carried out successfully before. As he pulled in
his heaving mount and leaped off, a couple of ranchers came out of the
place, and one of them stepped to a clean-limbed, fiery bay. He was
about to get into his saddle when he saw Duane, and then he halted, a
foot in the stirrup.

Duane strode forward, grasped the bridle of this man's horse.

"Mine's done--but not killed," he panted. "Trade with me."

"Wal, stranger, I'm shore always ready to trade," drawled the man. "But
ain't you a little swift?"

Duane glanced back up the road. His pursuers were entering the village.

"I'm Duane--Buck Duane," he cried, menacingly. "Will you trade? Hurry!"

The rancher, turning white, dropped his foot from the stirrup and fell
back.

"I reckon I'll trade," he said.

Bounding up, Duane dug spurs into the bay's flanks. The horse snorted
in fright, plunged into a run. He was fresh, swift, half wild. Duane
flashed by the remaining houses on the street out into the open. But the
road ended at that village or else led out from some other quarter, for
he had ridden straight into the fields and from them into rough desert.
When he reached the cover of mesquite once more he looked back to find
six horsemen within rifle-shot of him, and more coming behin