h. Even now the last speaker was
scrambling up the bank toward him.

The sheepman had to choose between leaving his rifle and immediate
flight. The latter was such a forlorn hope that he gave up Buck for the
moment, and ran back to the place where his repeating Winchester had
fallen. Without stopping he scooped the rifle up as he passed. In his
day he had been a famous sprinter, and he scudded now for dear life.
It was no longer a question of secrecy. The sound of men breaking their
hurried way through the heavy brush of the creek bank came crisply to
him. A voice behind shouted a warning, and from not a hundred yards in
front of him came an answering shout. Hemmed in from the fore and the
rear, he swung off at a right angle. An open stretch lay before him, but
he had to take his desperate chance without cover. Anything was better
than to be trapped like a wild beast driven by the beaters to the guns.

Across the bare, brown mesa he plunged; and before he had taken a dozen
steps the first rifle had located its prey and was sniping at him.
He had perhaps a hundred yards to cover ere the mesa fell away into a
hollow, where he might find temporary protection in the scrub pines.
And now a second marksman joined himself to the first. But he was going
fast, already had covered half the distance, and it is no easy thing to
bring down a live, dodging target.

Again the first gun spoke, and scored another miss, whereat a mocking,
devilish laugh rang out in the sunshine.

"Y'u boys splash a heap of useless lead around the horizon. I reckon
Cousin Ned's my meat. Y'u see, I get him in the flapper without spoiling
him complete." And at the word he flung the rifle to his shoulder and
fired with no apparent aim.

The running man doubled up like a cottontail, but found his feet again
in an instant, though one arm hung limp by his side. He was within a
dozen feet of the hilldrop and momentary safety.

"Shall I take him, Cap?" cried one of the men.

"No; he's mine." The rifle smoked once more and again the runner went
down. But this time he plunged headlong down the slope and out of sight.

The outlaw chief turned on his heel. "I reckon he'll not run any more
to-day. Bring him into camp and we'll take him along with us," he said
carelessly, and walked away to his horse in the creek bed.

Two of the men started forward, but they stopped half way, as if rooted
to the ground. For a galloping horseman suddenly drew up at the very
p