the man hemmed in on the riverbank, but it hurt him to lie there without
attempting aid. The ranger making the lone fight might be Bob Dillon,
poor Bob who had to whip his courage to keep himself from playing the
weakling. Dud hoped not. He did not like to think of his riding mate in
such desperate straits with no hope of escape.

The battle on the ridge had begun again. Hollister and Reeves decided to
try to rejoin their friends. From the north end of the willows they crept
into a small draw that led away from the river toward the hills beyond
the mesa. Both of them were experienced plainsmen. They knew how to make
the most of such cover as there was. As they moved through the sage,
behind hillocks and along washes, they detoured to put as much distance
as possible between them and the Utes at the edge of the bench.

But the last hundred yards had to be taken in the open. They did it under
fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of
blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went
pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent
bullet had struck him in the fleshy part of the lower leg.

Hawks let out a cowboy yell at sight of them, jumped up, and pulled Dud
down beside him among the boulders.

"Never expected to see you lads again alive an' kickin' after you an' the
Utes started that footrace. I'll bet neither one of you throwed down on
yoreself when you was headin' for the willows. Gee, I'm plumb glad to see
you."

"We're right glad to be here, Buck," acknowledged Dud. "What's new?"

"We got these birds goin', looks like. In about an hour now we're
allowin' to hop down into the gulch real sudden an' give 'em merry
hell."

Dud reported to Harshaw. The cattleman dropped a hand on his rider's
shoulder with a touch of affection. He was very fond of the gay young
fellow.

"Thought they'd bumped you off, boy. Heap much glad to see you. What do
you know?"

"I reckon nothing that you don't. There was firin' down by the river.
Looks like they found one o' the boys who went over the bluff."

"An' there's a bunch of 'em strung out among the bushes close to the edge
of the mesa. Fifteen or twenty, would you think?"

"Must be that many, the way their bullets dropped round Tom an' me just
now."

"Tom much hurt?"

"Flesh wound only--in the laig."

Harshaw nodded. His mind was preoccupied with the problem before them.
"The bulk of 'em are down i