d.

He gave one swift glance at Ted, then threw the hide to the ground and
set out at a run through the plunging beasts.

Ted was hampered by the cattle getting in his way, and was not making
much progress, but he was beating the horned beasts aside with his
quirt.

It was possible even yet that the man who was running from him would
escape, and this was what Ted was trying with all his might to prevent.

Ted knew why the man was among the cattle protected from them by his
disguise of the cow's hide.

He had been hamstringing them by the wholesale.

In one day the inhuman brute could destroy for range use a whole herd.

In the meantime, the cattle were growing wilder and wilder from the pain
caused by the hamstringer's knife, the wild career of the unmounted man
among them, and Ted and Stella pressing through them from the rear with
shouts and cracking quirts.

"Great Scott! They'll get him!" shouted Ted, reining in his pony.

The furious steers had turned their attention to the man on foot, and
were surging about him with angry bellowings, charging upon him, and
crowding him.

He was in a very perilous position, and it was only that the cattle were
herded so close together that he had not gone down sooner.

But once the cattle got him down he would be gored and trampled to
death. Nothing could save him.

Ted and Stella were trying to force their way to his side, but were
unable to do so.

Notwithstanding the fact the fellow had been caught in the act of
mutilating his cattle, Ted could not see him die without trying to save
him.

Now they heard a cry of fear, and saw the man throw his arms up in the
air.

The cattle were surging about him with wild and angry bovine cries, and
with a great tossing of horns, and leaps into the air.

There were muffled yells of agony from beneath the tossing mass of
horns.

"They've got him," muttered Ted. "They are wreaking their own revenge."

"Are they killing him, Ted?" asked Stella.

"They have got him down. The fool he was to go among them on foot. He
should have known better."

Ted made another effort to get through the cattle, and at last succeeded
in making a lane for himself.

"Stella," he shouted over his shoulder, "you stay where you are! This is
nothing for you to see. Better let me attend to this."

Stella was aware that Ted always knew what he was talking about when he
warned her away from anything, and she made her way out of the herd.

When