ned in his saddle and his voice reached her
above the tumult.

"Let 'em go!" he shouted. "Let 'em go! Hold the herd!"

Far off on the opposite side she made out a lone horseman riding at a
full run along the sidehill above the cows as he made a supreme effort
to reach the head of the run. The Three Bar men split and streamed up
both sides of the bottoms. The flashes had ceased except for brief,
quivering plays of less than a second's duration. She hung her spurs
into Papoose and trusted to his footwork. The swift little horse
passed one rider, then another. There were only the rumble of hoofs
and the crazed bawling of cows to guide her as she drew near the rear
of the herd. A half-flare showed the pinto a bare twenty yards ahead,
with Harris putting him at the slope to pass the cows. She swung her
own horse after him and she felt the frequent skid of his feet on the
treacherous sidehill. Papoose braced on his haunches and slid down a
precipitous bank, buckled up the far side and down again, then swooped
across a long flat bench. Three times she felt the heaving plunge and
jar as the little horse skimmed over cut-bank coulees and washes which
her own eyes could not see in the dripping velvet black.

From the sounds below she knew they were well up on the flanks of the
run and nearing the peak. The stampede seemed slowing. A long,
wavering flash revealed Harris a dozen jumps ahead. Papoose followed
the paint-horse as Harris put Calico down the slippery sidehill and
lifted him round the point of the herd. In the same flash Billie had
seen two slickers out before the peaks of the run, flapping weirdly in
the faces of the foremost cows. This accounted for the slowing-up she
had sensed. Two of her men were before them and she wondered how this
had come to pass.

The lightning-play broke forth once more. She saw two riders swinging
round the opposite point. The two slickers were working in the center.
Harris's gun flashed six times. She jerked her own and rolled it. The
two riders who had just rounded the far point joined in. Cows in the
front ranks held back from this fearsome commotion out in front.
Others, driven by the pressure behind, forged past them, only to hold
back in their turn as the guns flashed before their eyes.

The storm ceased as suddenly as it had begun and for two miles she rode
in inky darkness. The last mile was slower. It was showing gray in
the east and the night run had spe