nd neighed
joyfully.

The boys looked at each other with white faces. They understood at last.
Jube was mounted on a stolen horse within a hundred yards of the
pursuing owner and the officers of the law. Could explanations--words,
mere words--clear him in the teeth of this fact?

"Drap out'n the saddle, turn the critter loose in the road, an' take ter
the woods," urged Ike.

"They'll sarch an' ketch me," quavered Jube.

He was frantic at the idea of being captured on the horse's back, but if
it should come to a race, he preferred trusting to the chestnut's four
legs rather than to his own two.

Ike hesitated. Jube had brought the difficulty all on himself, and
surely it was not incumbent on Ike to share the danger. But he was
swayed by a sudden uncontrollable impulse.

"Drap off'n the critter, turn him loose, an' I'll lope down the road a
piece, an' they'll foller me, in the mist."

He might have done a wiser thing. But it was a tough problem at best,
and he had only a moment in which to decide.

In that swift, confused second he saw Jube slide from the saddle and
disappear in the mist as if he had been caught up in the clouds. He
heard the horse's hoofs striking against the stones as he trotted off,
whinnying, to meet his master. There was a momentary clamor among the
men, and then with whip and spur they pressed on to capture the supposed
malefactor.

CHAPTER II

All at once it occurred to Ike, as he galloped down the road, that when
they overtook him, they would think that he was the thief, and that he
had been leading the horse. He had been so strong in his own innocence
that the possibility that they might suspect him had not before entered
his mind.

He had intended only to divert the pursuit from Jube, who, although free
from any great wrong-doing, was exposed to the most serious
misconstruction. The knowledge of the pursuers' revolvers had made this
a hard thing to do, but otherwise he had not thought of himself, nor of
what he should say when overtaken.

They would question him; he must answer. Would they believe his story?
Could he support it? Grig Beemy of course would deny it. And Jube--had
he not known how Jube could lie? Would he not fear that the truth might
somehow involve him with the horse-thief?

Ike, with despair in his heart, urged his mare to her utmost speed,
knowing now the danger he was in as a suspected horse-thief. Suddenly,
from among his pursuers, a tiny jet of flame flar