end.
He reined back suddenly, causing the others to do the same. He held up
a warning hand.

Cautiously they looked ahead round the crumbling rock.

Half-way between where they were and the next turn, a lone horseman
was standing, intent on the adjusting of the girths and heavy
saddlebags on his steaming horse. He looked over his shoulder every
second or so in the direction of the Landing, as if he feared he might
be suddenly surprised.

"By God!" whispered Howden, atremble with excitement, "one of them!"

"Sssh!" cautioned Phil.

Gathering for a dash, they sprang round the turn with a yell, Phil's
horse fairly leaping ahead of the others.

The man by the horse looked up in astonishment. Evidently he had not
been anticipating pursuit from that quarter. With an astounding
agility for a man of his apparent bulk, he sprang clear from the
ground into the saddle of his tall horse, and he was off like a
whirlwind.

The three followed after at breakneck speed, but neither Jim's horse
nor Howden's was a match for the great striding beast in front of
them. Phil's speedy little mare was the only one that could in any way
hold its own.

They covered a mile in a heart-breaking pace, and by that time Phil
was three hundred yards in front of Jim and Howden, with the hunted
man two hundred yards further ahead still.

At every bend and turn, Phil's heart stood still in the fear of an
ambush, but he could do nothing but take that chance, if he ever
wished to keep his quarry in sight. The lone rider, however, had
evidently only one thought and that was to shake his pursuers.

The light was creeping up every minute. Phil looked away behind
him and fancied he saw other riders tailing in behind Jim and
Howden,--which was true, for the two had been joined by McConnachie
and one other who had pursued the horseman but had been outridden
by him over the old road from Okanagan Landing.

Phil began to realise that he was slowly gaining. The man ahead also
became anxiously aware of the fact, for he cast a critical glance over
his shoulder every now and again as if measuring the space between.

Through the part gloom, Phil noticed that he was masked and heavily
bearded. He was unable to identify the figure with any he had seen in
the Valley, and it flashed through his mind in a sub-conscious way
that possibly a gang from the other side of the Line had engineered
the bank robbery. Yet there was something in the gait of the great,
st