thousand for the Three Star, that was the agreement, the
custom, and he knew the girl's breed well enough to have no hesitation
in making the split as he would with a man. The next thing to do was to
pick out a school for her. There Sandy was at a loss. He mulled it over
as he rode, his outer senses playing sentinels to his consciousness.

He had deliberately avoided trouble for reasons he considered quite
sufficient, but annoyance pricked him that he had been forced to slide
out the back way from Plimsoll's, for all the odds against him. If it
had been his own money--a sudden flash of future responsibilities as
Molly Casey's guardian illumined his thought--if the luck-piece had not
been hers, the play for her future welfare, he would have set his own
marvelous coordination against Butch and the others in a shooting match,
as he had done other times, in other places. Sam, he knew, was
wondering a little at their strategic retreat.

But the old days were going, law and order were beginning to supersede
the old methods of every man to his own judgment and action. Hereford
had a sheriff who was not above suspicion, but the majority of the
people had little use for him and this term of office would be his last.

Sandy could not quite gauge Plimsoll's actions in tamely paying over the
winnings and he looked and listened, noting every movement of Pronto
moving free-muscled beneath him, for some sign of alarm--perhaps a
rifle-shot out of the mesquite. They were not the best of targets, Sam
and he, riding fast in the thick dusk under the stars. The road was
almost invisible, the plain unsubstantial, though the far-off mountain
ranges showed plainly cut, with a curious trick of seeming always to
shift back as the observer advanced. Little winds blew in their faces,
cool and sweet from the desert, charged with spice of sage.

The ponies struck the loosened planks of the bridge clop-clop, springing
forward into a gallop as their riders touched heels to flanks. The pinto
was the quicker to get into his stride. Just past the center of the
bridge Sam saw Sandy's mount jump like a startled cat into the air. He
saw Sandy pliant in his seat; marked against the starry sky. Then came a
spurt of red flame from the far bank--to the right--another--and
another--from the left. A bullet hummed by him and his own horse slid
stiff-legged, plowing the planks, hind feet flat from hoof-points to
fetlocks as the pony whirled away from the yawning