with three horses swung
out to the right. Afraid of the long rifle--a burdensome weapon seldom
carried by rustlers or riders--they had been put to rout.

Suddenly Venters discovered that one of the two men last noted was
riding Jane Withersteen's horse Bells--the beautiful bay racer she had
given to Lassiter. Venters uttered a savage outcry. Then the small,
wiry, frog-like shape of the second rider, and the ease and grace of his
seat in the saddle--things so strikingly incongruous--grew more and more
familiar in Venters's sight.

"Jerry Card!" cried Venters.

It was indeed Tull's right-hand man. Such a white hot wrath inflamed
Venters that he fought himself to see with clearer gaze.

"It's Jerry Card!" he exclaimed, instantly. "And he's riding Black Star
and leading Night!"

The long-kindling, stormy fire in Venters's heart burst into flame. He
spurred Wrangle, and as the horse lengthened his stride Venters slipped
cartridges into the magazine of his rifle till it was once again full.
Card and his companion were now half a mile or more in advance, riding
easily down the slope. Venters marked the smooth gait, and understood it
when Wrangle galloped out of the sage into the broad cattle trail,
down which Venters had once tracked Jane Withersteen's red herd. This
hard-packed trail, from years of use, was as clean and smooth as a road.
Venters saw Jerry Card look back over his shoulder, the other rider did
likewise. Then the three racers lengthened their stride to the point
where the swinging canter was ready to break into a gallop.

"Wrangle, the race's on," said Venters, grimly. "We'll canter with them
and gallop with them and run with them. We'll let them set the pace."

Venters knew he bestrode the strongest, swiftest, most tireless horse
ever ridden by any rider across the Utah uplands. Recalling Jane
Withersteen's devoted assurance that Night could run neck and neck with
Wrangle, and Black Star could show his heels to him, Venters wished
that Jane were there to see the race to recover her blacks and in the
unqualified superiority of the giant sorrel. Then Venters found himself
thankful that she was absent, for he meant that race to end in Jerry
Card's death. The first flush, the raging of Venters's wrath, passed, to
leave him in sullen, almost cold possession of his will. It was a deadly
mood, utterly foreign to his nature, engendered, fostered, and released
by the wild passions of wild men in a wild country. T