urned toward the sheepman and laughed. "Good-bye, Burr," he
cried, with a wave of his hand. "It's a race now. We're on the home
stretch."

He pressed Road Runner with his knees and leaned toward the Espinosa.
Road Runner struck into a gallop, with tossing head and snorting
nostrils, as if he were fresh from a month in pasture.

Pearson rode twenty yards and heard the unmistakable sound of a
Winchester lever throwing a cartridge into the barrel. He dropped flat
along his horse's back before the crack of the rifle reached his ears.

It is possible that Burrows intended only to disable the horse--he was
a good enough shot to do that without endangering his rider. But as
Pearson stooped the ball went through his shoulder and then through
Road Runner's neck. The horse fell and the cowman pitched over his
head into the hard road, and neither of them tried to move.

Burrows rode on without stopping.

In two hours Pearson opened his eyes and took inventory. He managed to
get to his feet and staggered back to where Road Runner was lying.

Road Runner was lying there, but he appeared to be comfortable. Pearson
examined him and found that the bullet had "creased" him. He had been
knocked out temporarily, but not seriously hurt. But he was tired, and
he lay there on Miss Tonia's hat and ate leaves from a mesquite branch
that obligingly hung over the road.

Pearson made the horse get up. The Easter hat, loosed from the
saddle-thongs, lay there in its calico wrappings, a shapeless thing
from its sojourn beneath the solid carcass of Road Runner. Then
Pearson fainted and fell head long upon the poor hat again, crumpling
it under his wounded shoulders.

It is hard to kill a cowpuncher. In half an hour he revived--long
enough for a woman to have fainted twice and tried ice-cream for a
restorer. He got up carefully and found Road Runner who was busy with
the near-by grass. He tied the unfortunate hat to the saddle again, and
managed to get himself there, too, after many failures.

At noon a gay and fluttering company waited in front of the Espinosa
Ranch. The Rogers girls were there in their new buckboard, and the
Anchor-O outfit and the Green Valley folks--mostly women. And each and
every one wore her new Easter hat, even upon the lonely prairies, for
they greatly desired to shine forth and do honor to the coming festival.

At the gate stood Tonia, with undisguised tears upon her cheeks. In her
hand she held Burrow's