om of the gully lying at the foot of a ridge across
which he had to ride, Durham gave his horse a spell. The top of the
ridge rose steep and bare. As he looked towards it, estimating which was
the better direction to take to get to the cave, he heard the sounds of
a horse walking.

Presently, on the sky-line, immediately above him, he saw a horse and
rider. There was just light enough for him to distinguish the form of
the man.

He was clad in grey, the jacket open, his hat in his hand. He was a
bearded man--a man with a yellow beard.

It was the Rider!

Even as Durham watched, the man saw him, saw him and swung his horse
round so sharply it set back on its haunches.

In another moment he would be flying away through the gathering gloom,
away into the broken fastnesses of the range, away, perhaps, for all
time, from capture.

The horse was recovering itself. Durham threw his carbine forward and,
as the horse reared at the pain of the spurs driven into its side, he
fired.

Amid the echoes of the report there came a sharp scream of agony.

Durham leaped to his saddle and spurred his horse up the steep slope.

When he reached the summit only the marks of the flying horse's hoofs
showed which way the man had gone.

CHAPTER XVIII

UNMASKED

The silvery sheen of the rising moon glittered on the surface of the
pool and lay over the sombre-foliaged bush as Durham came out upon the
top of the bluff above the Rider's cave.

From the moment he reached the ridge to find only the marks made by the
plunging horse he had raced to get there first. Down the sharp slopes of
the gullies, across the dry, rock-strewn bed of the mountain-streams, up
the opposite steeps, with never a care for the risks he ran, he kept his
horse at its topmost speed, sparing neither spur nor lash to urge it
along. There was no time to choose the easy paths, no chance of picking
his way; every moment was of value, for he knew how the wounded outlaw
would make desperate haste to get to the shelter of his haven.

The gloom of the bush ere the moon rose added to his difficulties. With
no landmark to serve as a guide he had to rely absolutely upon his
instinctive sense of locality, and kept steadily in the one direction,
although that meant riding over the rugged ground, barred by tumbled
boulders and thickly growing trees, which formed the almost precipitous
sides of the gullies. At any time a fall was possible; he carried his
life in hi