stumbled. His groping fingers found a
rope. One end of the rope was attached to a stake driven into the ground.
The other led to a horse, a pinto, built for spirit and for speed, his
trained eye could tell.

He pulled up the stake and wound up the rope, moving toward the pinto as
he did so. He decided it would be better not to try to get a saddle till
he reached Tolliver's place. The rope would do for a bridle at a pinch.

The horse backed away from him, frightened at this stranger who had
appeared from nowhere. He followed, trying in a whisper to soothe the
animal. It backed into a small pinon, snapping dry branches with its
weight.

Houck cursed softly. He did not want to arouse anybody in the camp or to
call the attention of the night jinglers to his presence. He tried to
lead the pinto away, but it balked and dug its forefeet into the ground,
leaning back on the rope.

The outlaw murmured encouragement to the horse. Reluctantly it yielded to
the steady pull on its neck. Man and beast began to move back up the
hill. As soon as he was a safe distance from the camp, Houck meant to
make of the rope a bridle.

In the pre-dawn darkness he could see little and that only as vague
outlines rather than definite shapes. But some instinct warned the hunted
man that this was no round-up camp. He did not quite know what it was.
Yet he felt as though he were on the verge of a discovery, as though an
unknown but terrible danger surrounded him. Unimaginative he was, but
something that was almost panic flooded up in him.

He could not wait to mount the horse until he had reached the brow of the
hill. Drawing the rope close, he caught at the mane of the horse and bent
his knees for the spring.

Houck had an instant's warning, and his revolver was half out of its
scabbard when the rush of the attack flung him against the startled
animal. He fought like a baited bear, exerting all his great strength to
fling back the figures that surged up at him out of the darkness. From
all sides they came at him, with guttural throat cries, swarming over
each other as he beat them down.

The struggling mass quartered over the ground like some unwieldy
prehistoric reptile. Houck knew that if he lost his footing he was done
for. Once, as the cluster of fighters swung downhill, the outlaw found
himself close to the edge of the group. He got his arms free and tried to
beat off those clinging to him. Out of the melee he staggered, a pair of
arms