he usual watering-place of the Pacer. The
water being low left a broad belt of dry black mud between the sedge and
the spring. At two places this belt was broken by a well-marked trail
made by the animals coming to drink. Horses and wild animals usually
kept to these trails, though the horned cattle had no hesitation in
taking a short cut through the sedge.

In the most used of these trails the two men set to work with shovels
and dug a pit 15 feet long, 6 feet wide and 7 feet deep. It was a
hard twenty hours work for them as it had to be completed between
the Mustang's drinks, and it began to be very damp work before it was
finished. With poles, brush, and earth it was then cleverly covered over
and concealed. And the men went to a distance and bid in pits made for
the purpose.

About noon the Pacer came, alone now since the capture of his band.
The trail on the opposite side of the mud belt was little used, and old
Tom, by throwing some fresh rushes across it, expected to make sure
that the Stallion would enter by the other, if indeed he should by any
caprice try to come by the unusual path.

What sleepless angel is it watches over and cares for the wild animals?
In spite of all reasons to take the usual path, the Pacer came along the
other. The suspicious-looking rushes did not stop him; he walked calmly
to the water and drank. There was only one way now to prevent utter
failure; when he lowered his head for the second draft which horses
always take, Bates and Smith quit their holes and ran swiftly toward
the trail behind him, and when he raised his proud head Smith sent a
revolver shot into the ground behind him.

Away went the Pacer at his famous gait straight to the trap. Another
second and he would be into it. Already he is on the trail, and already
they feel they have him, but the Angel of the wild things is with him,
that incomprehensible warning comes, and with one mighty bound he clears
the fifteen feet of treacherous ground and spurns the earth as he fades
away unharmed, never again to visit Antelope Springs by either of the
beaten paths.

V

Wild Jo never lacked energy. He meant to catch that Mustang, and when he
learned that others were be stirring themselves for the same purpose
he at once set about trying the best untried plan he knew--the plan by
which the coyote catches the fleeter jackrabbit, and the mounted Indian
the far swifter antelope--the old plan of the relay chase.

The Canadian River