quick plunges. Neither of the young men used the spur, for the chase might develop into a long one with stamina the deciding factor. The mesquite was heavy and the hill steep, but presently they struck a cattle run which led to the divide.
Two of the Apaches stopped at the summit for a shot at their pursuers, but neither of the young men wasted powder in answer. They knew that close-range work would prove far more deadly and that only a chance hit could serve them now.
From Billie, who had reached the crest first, came a cry of dismay. His partner, a moment later, knew the reason for it. One of the Apaches, racing across the valley below, was almost at the heels of the girl.
The cowpunchers flung their ponies down the sharp incline recklessly. The animals were sure-footed as mountain goats. Otherwise they could never have reached the valley right side up. It was a stretch of broken shale with much loose rubble. The soft sandstone farther along had eroded and there was a great deal of slack débris down which the horses slipped and slid, now on their haunches and again on all fours.
The valley stretched for a mile before them and terminated at a rock wall into which, no doubt, one or more cañons cut like sword clefts. The cowpunchers had picked mounts, but it was plain they could not overhaul the Apaches before the Indians captured the girl.
Billie, even while galloping at full speed, began a longdistance fire upon the enemy. One of the Mescaleros had caught the bridle of the young woman’s horse and was stopping the animal. It looked for a moment as if the raiders were going to make a stand, but presently their purpose became clear to those in pursuit. The one that Billie had picked for a renegade white dropped from the horse upon which he was riding double and swung up behind the captive. The huddle of men and ponies opened up and was in motion again toward the head of the valley.
But though the transfer had been rapid, it had taken time. The pursuers, thundering across the valley, had gained fast. Rifles barked back and forth angrily.
The Indians swerved sharply to the left for the mouth of a cañon. Here they pulled up to check the cowboys, who slid from their saddles to use their ponies for protection.
“That gorge to the right is called Escondido Cañon,” explained Prince. “We combed it for cattle last year. About three miles up it runs into the one where the ’Paches are. Don’t remember the name of that one.”
“I’ll give it a new name,” answered the boy. He raised his rifle, rested it across the back of his pony, and took careful aim. An Indian plunged from his horse. “Shoot-a-Buck Cañon—how’ll that do for a name?” inquired Thursday with a grin.
Prince let out a whoop. “You got him right. He’ll never smile again. Shoot-a-Buck Cañon goes.”
The Indians evidently held a hurried consultation and changed their minds about holding the gorge against such deadly shooting as this.
“They’re gun-shy,” announced Thursday. “They don’t like the way we fog ’em and they’re goin’ to hit the trail, Billie.”
After one more shot Prince made the mistake of leaving the shelter of his horse too soon. He swung astride and found the stirrup. A puff of smoke came from the entrance to the gulch. Billie turned to his friend with a puzzled, sickly smile on his face. “They got me, kid.”
“Bad?”
The cowboy began to sag in the saddle. His friend helped him to the ground. The wound was in the thigh.
“I’ll tie it up for you an’ you’ll be good as new,” promised his friend.
The older man looked toward the gorge. No Indians were in sight.
“I can wait, but that little girl in the hands of those devils can’t. Are you game to play a lone hand, kid?” he asked.
“I reckon.”
“Then ride hell-for-leather up Escondido. It’s shorter than the way they took. Where the gulches come together be waitin’ an’ git ’em from the brush. There’s just one slim chance you’ll make it an’ come back alive.”
The boy’s eyes were shining. “Suits me fine. I’ll go earn that name I christened myself—Jimmie-Go-Get-’Em.”
Billie, his face twisted with pain, watched the youngster disappear at a breakneck gallop into Escondido.
Jim Thursday knew that his sole chance of success lay in reaching the fork of the cañons before the Indians. So far he had been lucky. Three Apaches had gone to their happy hunting ground, and though both he and Billie were wounded, his hurt at least did not interfere with accurate rifle-fire. But it was not reasonable to expect such good fortune to hold. In the party he was pursuing were four men, all of them used to warfare in the open. Unless he could take them at a disadvantage he could not by any possibility defeat them and rescue their captive.
His cinnamon pony took the rising ground at a steady gallop. Its stride did not falter, though its breathing was labored. Occasionally the rider touched its flank with the sharp rowel of a spur. The boy was a lover of horses. He had ridden too many dry desert stretches, had too often kept night watch over a sleeping herd, not to care for the faithful and efficient animal that served him and was a companion to his loneliness. Like many plainsmen he made of his mount a friend.
But he dared not spare his pony now. He must ride the heart out of the gallant brute for the sake of that life he had come to save. And while he urged it on, his hand patted the sweat-stained neck and his low voice sympathized.
“You’ve got to go to it, old fellow, if it kills you.” he said aloud. “We got to save that girl for Billie, ain’t we? We can’t let those red devils take her away, can we?”
It was a rough cattle trail he followed, strewn here with boulders and there tilted down at break-neck angle of slippery shale. Sometimes it fell abruptly into washes and more than once rose so sharply that a heather cat could scarce have clambered up. But Thursday flung his horse recklessly at the path, taking chances of a fall that might end the mad race. He could not wait to pick a way. His one hope lay in speed, in reaching the fork before the enemy. He sacrificed everything to that.
From the top of a sharp pitch he looked down into the twin cañon of Escondido. A sharp bend cut off the view to the left, so that he could see for only seventy-five or a hundred yards. But his glance followed the gulch up for half a mile and found no sign of life. He was in time.
Swiftly he made his preparations. First he led the exhausted horse back to a clump of young cottonwoods and tied it safely. From its place beside the saddle he took the muley gun and with the rifle in his other hand he limped swiftly back to the trail. Every step was torture, but he could not stop to think of that now. His quick eye picked a perfect spot for an ambush where a great rock leaned against another at the edge of the bluff. Between the two was a narrow opening through which he could command the bend in the trail below. To enlarge this he scooped out the dirt with his fingers, then reloaded the rifle and thrust it into the crevice. The sawed-off shotgun lay close to his hand.
Till now he had found no time to get nervous, but as the minutes passed he began to tremble violently and to whimper. In spite of his experience he was only a boy and until to-day had never killed a man.
“Doggone it. if I ain’t done gone an’ got buck fever,” he reproached himself. “I reckon it’s because Billie Prince ain’t here that I’m so scairt. I wisht I had a drink, so as I’d be right when the old muley gun gits to barkin’.”
A faint sound, almost indistinguishable, echoed up the gulch to him. Miraculously his nervousness vanished. Every nerve was keyed up, every muscle tense, but he was cool as water in a mountain stream.
The sound repeated itself, a faint tinkle of gravel rolling from a trail beneath the hoof of a horse. At the last moment Thursday changed his mind and substituted the shotgun for the rifle.
“Old muley she spatters all over the State of Texas. I might git two at once,” he muttered.
The light, distant murmur of voices reached him. His trained ear told him just how far