“They ain’t nothin’ in that brand of talk,” growled Buck, reddening.  “Anyway, at last I started for the door.  It wasn’t farther away than from here to the wall.  Outside was my hoss, and a chance for livin’.  But that door was a thousand years away, and a thousand times while I walked towards it I felt Dan’s gun click and bang behind me and felt the lead go tearin’ through me.  And I didn’t dare to hurry, because I knew that might wake Dan up.  So finally I got to the doors and just as they was swingin’ to behind me, I heard a sort of a moan behind me——­”

“From Dan!” whispered the white-faced girl.  “I know—­a sort of a stifled cry when he’s angered!  Oh, Buck.”

“My first step took me ten yards from that door,” reminisced Buck Daniels, “and my next step landed me in the saddle, and I dug them spurs clean into the insides of Long Bess.  She started like a watch-spring uncoilin’, and as she spurts down the streets I leans clean over to her mane and locks back and there I seen Dan standin’ in the door with his gun in his hand and the wind blowin’ his hair.  But he didn’t shoot, because the next second I was swallowed up in the dark and couldn’t see him no more.”

“But it was no use!” cried the girl.  “With Black Bart to trail you and with Satan to carry him, he overtook you—­and then——­”

“He didn’t,” said Buck Daniels.  “I’d fixed things so’s he couldn’t get started with Satan for some time.  And before he could have Satan on my trail I’d jut a long stretch behind me because Long Bess was racin’ every step.  The lay of the land was with me.  It was pretty level, and on level goin’ Long Bess is almost as fast as Satan; but on rocky goin’ Satan is like a goat—­nothin’ stops him!  And I was ridin’ Long Bess like to bust her heart, straight towards McCauley’s.  We wasn’t more’n a mile away when I thought—­the wind was behind me, you see—­that I heard a sort of far off whistling down the wind!  My God!”

He could not go on for a moment, and Kate Cumberland sat with parted lips, twisting her fingers together and then tearing them apart once more.

“Well, that mile was the worst in my life.  I thought maybe the man I’d sent on ahead hadn’t been able to leave me a relay at McCauley’s, and if he hadn’t I knew I’d die somewhere in the hills beyond.  And they looked as black as dead men, and all sort of grinnin’ down at me.

“But when I got to McCauley’s, there stood a hoss right in front of the house.  It didn’t take me two second to make the saddle-change.  And then I was off agin!”

A sigh of relief came from Byrne and Kate.

“That hoss was a beauty.  Not long-legged like Bess, nor half so fast, but he was jest right for the hills.  Climbed like a goat and didn’t let up.  Up and up we goes.  The wind blows the clouds away when we gets to the top of the climb and I looks down into the valley all white in the moonlight.  And across the valley I seen two little shadows slidin’, smooth and steady.  It was Dan and Satan and Black Bart!”