The hounds were tearing through the sage, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow.

Don suddenly let out a string of yelps.  I saw him, running head up, pass into the cedars like a yellow dart.  Sounder howled his deep, full bay, and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

“They’re off!” yelled Jim, and so were we.

In less than a minute we had lost one another.  Crashings among the dry cedars, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction.  The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me.  I remembered that Jim had said Emett and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but that none of the rest of us could.

It did not take me long to realize what my mustang was made of.  His name was Foxie, which suited him well.  He carried me at a fast pace on the trail of some one; and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him.  Nevertheless, the sharp dead branches, more numerous in a cedar forest than elsewhere, struck and stung us as we passed.  We climbed a ridge, and found the cedars thinning out into open patches.  Then we faced a bare slope of sage and I saw Emett below on his big horse.

Foxie bolted down this slope, hurdling the bunches of sage, and showing the speed of which Emett had boasted.  The open ground, with its brush, rock and gullies, was easy going for the little mustang.  I heard nothing save the wind singing in my ears.  Emett’s trail, plain in the yellow ground showed me the way.  On entering the cedars again I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell “waa-hoo!” I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal.  Then I attended to the stern business of catching up.  For what seemed a long time, I threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on Emett’s track.

A signal cry, sharp to the right, turned me.  I answered, and with the exchange of signal cries found my way into an open glade where Jones and Jim awaited me.

“Here’s one,” said Jim.  “Emett must be with the hounds.  Listen.”

With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could hear no other sound.  Dismounting, I went aside and turned my ear to the breeze.

“I hear Don,” I cried instantly.

“Which way?” both men asked.

“West.”

“Strange,” said Jones.  “The hound wouldn’t split, would he, Jim?”

“Don leave that hot trail?  Shore he wouldn’t,” replied Jim.  “But his runnin’ do seem queer this morning.”

“The breeze is freshening,” I said.  “There!  Now listen!  Don, and Sounder, too.”

The baying came closer and closer.  Our horses threw up long ears.  It was hard to sit still and wait.  At a quick cry from Jim we saw Don cross the lower end of the flat.

No need to spur our mounts!  The lifting of bridles served, and away we raced.  Foxie passed the others in short order.  Don had long disappeared, but with blended bays, Jude, Moze, and Sounder broke out of the cedars hot on the trail.  They, too, were out of sight in a moment.