nything as Drew refused the Colts.

"You keep 'em--for him."

The ex-jockey nodded. "Better be riding on, Mr. Rennie. They'll come
looking, and I don't fancy having any fight here. With luck we'll get
your friend on his feet all right and tight, and he can slip south when
the dust is down a bit. But you'd better keep ahead of what can come
down the pike now."

Kirby moved, the spurs jangling musically on his boots. "I've been
thinkin' 'bout that theah road," he announced. "Any other trail outta
heah we can take?"

"Cross the pasture--" Dandy directed with a thumb--"then a cornfield,
and you'll hit the pike again. Cuts off about a mile."

"That sounds right invitin'." The Texan led the way back to the yard and
their waiting mounts. "Obliged to you, suh. Now," he spoke to Drew, "I'd
say it's time to raise some dust. Ain't far to sundown, an' we oughta
git some countryside between us an' them rip-snortin' javalinas--"

"Javalinas?" Drew heard Boyd repeat inquiringly.

"Kid--" the Texan reined his bay--"there is some mean things in this
heah world. Theah is Comanches an' Apaches, an' a longhorn cow with a
calf hid out in a thicket, an' a rattler, what's feelin' lowdown in his
mind. An' theah's javalinas, the wild boars of the Rio country. Then
theah's men what have had to ride fast on a day as hot as this,
swallerin' dust an' thinkin' what they're gonna do when they catch up to
them as they're chasin'; an' those men're 'bout as mean as the boars--"

Drew lifted his hand to Jim Dandy and followed the other two through the
pasture gate. Now he grinned.

"You sound like one speakin' from experience--of bein' chased, that is."

Kirby chuckled. "I'm jus' a poor little Texas boy, suh. 'Course we do a
bit of fast ridin'. Mostly though I've been on the other end, _doin'_
the chasin'. An' I know how it feels to eat dust an' git a mite riled
doin' it. I'd say we could maybe help ourselves a bit though."

"How?" Boyd asked eagerly.

"You"--Drew rounded on him--"can cut cross-country and get home!" There
was nothing in Boyd's clothing or equipment to suggest that he had been
a part of the now scattered raiders. "If the Yankees stop you," Drew
continued, "you can spin them a tale about riding out to see the fight.
And Major Forbes's name ought to help."

Boyd's scowl was a black cloud on his grimy young face. "I'm one of
General Morgan's men."

"Only a fool," remarked Kirby, "stops to argue with a mule, a skunk, a
cook,