TO THE RESCUE

If 'Mona lives to be eighty the high-lights of that wild ride will never
fade from her memory. The mesas rolled in long swells as far as the eye
could see. Through the chaparral the galloping horses plunged while the
prickly pear and the cholla clutched at their flanks and at the legs of
the riders. Into water-gutted arroyos they descended, slid down
breakneck shale ridges, climbed like heather cats the banks of dry
washes, pounded over white porous _malpais_ on which no vegetation grew.

Now Dinsmore was in front of her picking out the best way, now he was
beside her with cool, easy words of confidence, now he rode between her
and the naked Apaches, firing with deliberate and deadly accuracy.

"Don't look back," he warned her more than once. "My job is to look out
for them. Yours is to see yore horse don't throw you or break a leg in a
prairie-dog hole. They cayn't outrun us. Don't worry about that."

The man was so easy in manner, apparently so equal to the occasion, that
as the miles slid behind them her panic vanished. She felt for the small
revolver in her belt to make sure it was safe. If she should be thrown,
or if her horse should be shot, one thing must be done instantly. She
must send a bullet crashing into her brain.

To the right and to the left of her jets of dirt spat up where the shots
of the Indians struck the ground. Once or twice she looked back, but the
sight of the bareback riders at their heels so unnerved her that she
obeyed the orders of her companion and resisted the dreadful fascination
of turning in her saddle.

It had seemed to 'Mona at first with each backward glance that the
Indians were gaining fast on them, but after a time she knew this was
not true. The sound of their shots became fainter. She no longer saw the
spitting of the dust from their bullets and guessed they must be falling
short.

Her eyes flashed a question at the man riding beside her. "We're
gaining?"

"That's whatever. We'll make the canon all right an' keep goin'. Don't
you be scared," he told her cheerfully.

Even as he spoke, Ramona went plunging over the head of her horse into a
bunch of shin-oak. Up in an instant, she ran to remount. The bronco
tried to rise from where it lay, but fell back helplessly to its side.
One of its fore legs had been broken in a prairie-dog hole.

Dinsmore swung round his horse and galloped back, disengaging one foot
from the stirrup. The girl caught the hand he h