and wide over the prairie. By night bunches of tethered cow ponies
disappeared. The exasperated cowboys could only tell that suddenly out
of the darkness had swept down on their quiet camps an avalanche of wild
horses. And generally they caught glimpses of a great black branded
stallion who led the marauders at such a pace that he seemed almost to
fly through the air.

This stallion came to be known as Black Eagle, and to be thoroughly
feared and hated from one end of the cattle country to the other. The
Bar L ranch appeared to be the heaviest loser. Time after time were its
picketed mares run off, again and again were the Bar L herds scattered
by the dash of this mysterious band. Was it that Black Eagle could take
revenge? Cattlemen have queer notions. They put a price on his head. It
was worth six months wages to any cowboy who might kill or capture
Black Eagle.

About this time Lefty, the silent man of the Bar L outfit, disappeared.
Weeks went by and still the branded stallion remained free and unhurt,
for no cow horse in all the West could keep him in sight half an hour.

Black Eagle had been the outlaw king of the ranges for nearly two years
when one day, as he was standing at lookout while the band cropped the
rich mesa grass behind him, he saw entering the cleft end of a distant
arroyo a lone cowboy mounted on a dun little pony. With quick
intelligence the stallion noted that this arroyo wound about until its
mouth gave upon the side of the mesa not a hundred yards from where he
stood.

Promptly did Black Eagle act. Calling his band he led it at a sharp pace
to a sheltered hollow on the mesa's back slope. There he left it and
hurried away to take up his former position. He had not waited long
before the cowboy, riding stealthily, reappeared at the arroyo's mouth.
Instantly the race was on. Tossing his fine head in the air and
switching haughtily his splendid tail, Black Eagle laid his course in a
direction which took him away from his sheltered band. Pounding along
behind came the cowboy, urging to utmost endeavor the tough little
mustang which he rode.

Had this been simply a race it would have lasted but a short time. But
it was more than a race. It was a conflict of strategists. Black Eagle
wished to do more than merely out-distance his enemy. He meant to lead
him far away and then, under cover of night, return to his band.

Also the cowboy had a purpose. Well knowing that he could neither
overtake nor