."

"But not a very good place," commented Scott, as they slowed, looking
for a depression.

"It's as good for us as it is for them," returned de Spain abruptly.
"We'll try it right here."

He swung out of his saddle, Lefever and Scott after an instant's
reconnoissance following. Sassoon they dismounted. Scott lashed his
wrists together, while de Spain and Lefever unslung their carbines,
got their horses down, and, facing the west and south, spread
themselves on the ground.

The men behind lost nothing of the defensive movement of the pursued
party, and slowed up in turn. For the moment the flankers were out of
sight, but they must soon appear on the crest of a rise between them
and the canyon. Lefever was first down and first ready with his rifle
to cover the men behind. These now spread out and came on, as if for a
rush.

Lefever, picking Logan, the foremost, sent a warning shot in front of
him. De Spain fired almost at the same moment toward the big man
making a detour to the right of the leader. The two bullets puffed in
the distant alkali, and the two horsemen, sharply admonished, swerved
backward precipitately. After a momentary circling indecision, the
three rode closer together for a conference, dismounted, and opened a
return fire on the little party lying to.

The strategy of their halt and their firing was not hard to penetrate.
The men from the foot-hills were still riding for the canyon. No views
were exchanged among Sassoon's captors, but all understood that this
move must be stopped. Lefever and Scott, without words, merely left
the problem to de Spain as the leader. He lay on the right of the line
as they faced south, and this brought him nearest to the riders out of
the foot-hills. Taking advantage of a lull in the firing, he pulled
his horse around between himself and the attacking party, and in such
a position that he could command with his rifle the fast-moving riders
to the west.

Something of a predicament confronted him. He was loath to take a
human life in the effort to get a cutthroat jailed, and hated even to
cripple a beast for it, but the two men must be stopped. Nor was it
easy to pick up the range offhand, but meaning that the Morgans, if
they were Morgans, should understand how a rush would be met, he sent
one shot after another, short, beyond, and ahead of the horsemen, to
check them, and to feel the way for closer shooting if it should be
necessary. The two dashed on undaunted.