Pass.
Venters felt a sensation of irreparable loss.

"Bern--look!" called Bess, pointing up the long slope.

A small, dark, moving dot split the line where purple sage met blue sky.
That dot was a band of riders.

"Pull the black, Bess."

They slowed from gallop to canter, then to trot. The fresh and eager
horses did not like the check.

"Bern, Black Star has great eyesight."

"I wonder if they're Tull's riders. They might be rustlers. But it's all
the same to us."

The black dot grew to a dark patch moving under low dust clouds. It grew
all the time, though very slowly. There were long periods when it was in
plain sight, and intervals when it dropped behind the sage. The blacks
trotted for half an hour, for another half-hour, and still the moving
patch appeared to stay on the horizon line. Gradually, however, as time
passed, it began to enlarge, to creep down the slope, to encroach upon
the intervening distance.

"Bess, what do you make them out?" asked Venters. "I don't think they're
rustlers."

"They're sage-riders," replied Bess. "I see a white horse and several
grays. Rustlers seldom ride any horses but bays and blacks."

"That white horse is Tull's. Pull the black, Bess. I'll get down and
cinch up. We're in for some riding. Are you afraid?"

"Not now," answered the girl, smiling.

"You needn't be. Bess, you don't weigh enough to make Black Star know
you're on him. I won't be able to stay with you. You'll leave Tull and
his riders as if they were standing still."

"How about you?"

"Never fear. If I can't stay with you I can still laugh at Tull."

"Look, Bern! They've stopped on that ridge. They see us."

"Yes. But we're too far yet for them to make out who we are. They'll
recognize the blacks first. We've passed most of the ridges and the
thickest sage. Now, when I give the word, let Black Star go and ride!"

Venters calculated that a mile or more still intervened between them
and the riders. They were approaching at a swift canter. Soon Venters
recognized Tull's white horse, and concluded that the riders had
likewise recognized Black Star and Night. But it would be impossible for
Tull yet to see that the blacks were not ridden by Lassiter and Jane.
Venters noted that Tull and the line of horsemen, perhaps ten or twelve
in number, stopped several times and evidently looked hard down the
slope. It must have been a puzzling circumstance for Tull. Venters
laughed grimly at the thought of what T