It was the
coward's part to run. He had played a man's part, and he would
continue to play a man's part to the end. He would fight. Would
identify himself with this West--become part of it. Never would he
return to the life of the city, which would be to a life of fear. The
world should know that he was right. If local politics sought to crush
him--to use him as a puppet for their puny machinations, he would smash
their crude machine and rebuild the politics of this new land upon
principles as clean and rugged as the land itself. It should be his
work!

With the light of a new determination in his eyes, he caught up the
bridle-reins of the horses and pushed open the gate of the corral. As
he led the animals out he was once more greeted with a volley of oaths
and curses: "Put them back! Ye hoss-thief! I'll have ye hung! Them's
mine, I tell ye!"

"You'll get them back," assured Endicott. "I am only borrowing them to
go and hunt for a couple of friends of mine back there in the bad
lands."

"Back in the bad lands! What do ye know about the bad lands? Ye'll
git lost, an' then what'll happen to me? I'll die like a coyote in a
trap! I'll starve here where no one comes along fer it's sometimes a
week--mebbe two!"

"It will be a long time between meals if anything should happen to us,
but it will do you good to lie here and think it over. We'll be back
sometime." Endicott made the sack of provisions fast to the saddle of
the lead-horse, and assisted Alice to mount.

"I'll kill ye fer this!" wailed the man; "I'll--I'll--" but the two
rode away with the futile threats ringing in their ears.

CHAPTER XIX

THE END OF THE TRAIL

"How are we going to find them?" asked the girl, as the two drew their
mounts to a stand on the top of a low ridge and gazed out over the sea
of similar ridges that rolled and spread before them as far as the eye
could reach in three directions--bare coulees, and barer ridges, with
here and there a low bare hill, all black and red and grey, with
studdings of mica flashing in the rays of the afternoon sun.

"We'll find them. We've got to. I have just been thinking: Living on
the edge of the bad lands the way this man does he must occasionally
cross them. Tex said that the Split Rock water-hole was the only one
between the river and the mountains. We'll start the horses out and
give them their heads, and the chances are they will take us to the
water-hole. In all proba