-"

"I won't be in two minutes. Git out of our road," said Sandy, his voice
freezing in sudden contempt. He roweled Pronto and, with Sam even in the
jump, they galloped through the half-ring without opposition. Horses
were neck-reined aside to let them pass. The wind sang by them as they
tangented off from the road. A shot or two announced the attempt of some
to save their own faces, but no bullets came near the pair. The
fusillade was sheer bravado.

Pronto and the roan went at full speed, bellies low to the plain that
streamed past, the manes whipping the hands of their riders, springing
on sinews of whalebone through soapweed and mesquite, spurning the soil
with drumming hoofs, night-seeing, danger-dodging, jumping the little
gullies, reveling in the rush. Sandy and Sam sat slightly forward,
loose-seated, thigh-muscles and knees feeling the withers rather than
pressing them, balancing their own limber bodies to every movement of
the flying ponies.

A late moon climbed out of the east and scudded up the sky, silvering
the distant peaks. For almost a mile they rode at top speed, then they
settled down to a lope that ate up the miles--a walk at the end of
three--then lope and walk again, until the giant cottonwoods of the
Three Star rose from the plain, leaves shimmering in the moonlight, the
ranch buildings blocked in purple pin-pointed with orange--the
pin-points enlarging, resolving into two lighted windows as they passed
shack and barn and rode into the home corral at last, to unsaddle, wipe
down the horses and dismiss them for the time with a smack on their
lathery flanks, knowing they would be too wise to overdrink at the
trough, promising them grain later.

Mormon tiptoed heavily out on the creaking porch with a husky, "Hush!"

"What fo'?"

"Molly's asleep. 'Sisted on waitin' up for you."

"Well, we're here, ain't we?" demanded Sam. "Me, I got a scrape in my
arm an' some son of a wolf spiled my saddle. Sandy, he sorter evened up
fo' it."

"Bleedin'?" asked Mormon.

"Nope. Tied my bandanner round it. Cold air fixed it. Shucks, it ain't
nuthin'! Sandy's got a green kale plaster fo' it. Come to think of it, I
got ninety bucks myse'f."

"You won?"

"Did we win? Wait till we show you."

Molly met them as they went in, her eyes wide open, all sleep banished.

"Was it a luck-piece?" she demanded.

Sandy produced the package of bills, divided it, shoved over part.

"Your half," he said. "Five thousand