“Then will you tackle it with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “Jump in, and I’ll follow.  Your sleigh is empty, and father’s is full of all sorts of things —­it’s too heavy as it is.  Here they come!  Dad, I’m going with Mr. Pasmore,” she cried; and the sleighs raced abreast of one another down the slope.

“Spread out there,” cried Pasmore, “and don’t bunch together, or—­”

He did not finish the sentence, for just at that moment there came a ping from the shore they had just left, and a bullet sent up a jet of water into the air alongside of them.  There was another great rending sound from the ice that struck terror into their hearts.  Their horses quivered with excitement as they darted forward.  There was a roar in their ears that sounded as if they were close to a battery of artillery in action. Ping, ping, ping! and the bullets came whizzing over their heads or skidding on the ice alongside.  It was a lucky thing for them that the Indians were too keen in the pursuit to take proper aim.  Separating, so as to minimise the danger, each team dashed forward on its own account.

“Stay with it, broncho!  Stick to it, my son!” yelled Pasmore.

In the pauses of the thundering and rending there cut clearly into the now mild air the clattering of the horses’ hoofs, the hum of the steel-shod runners, and the ping, ping of the rifles.  It was a race for life with a vengeance, with death ahead and alongside, and with death at their heels.  A gap in the ice, or a stumble, and it would surely be all up with them.

“Go it, my game little broncho!” and with rein and voice Pasmore urged the brave “steed onwards.

“Hello! there goes the breed’s pony!” cried Pasmore.

A bullet had struck Bastien’s horse behind the ear and brought it down all of a heap upon the ice.  There was an ear-splitting crack just at that moment which added to the terror of the situation.  But the rancher pulled his horse up by a supreme effort, and Bastien, deserting his sleigh, leapt in beside him.  Then on again.

Pasmore’s pony was now somewhat behind the others, when suddenly there was a mighty roar, and a great crevasse opened up in front of them.  It took all the strength that Pasmore possessed to pull up on the brink.

“We must get out and jump over this somehow,” Pasmore cried to Dorothy.  “It’s neck or nothing.”

So they sprang out of the sleigh, unhitched the plucky pony, and prepared to cross the deadly-looking fissure.

CHAPTER XIX

CAPTURED BY POUNDMAKER

The first thing that Pasmore did was to urge the pony to leap the crevasse on its own account; after a very little coaxing the intelligent animal gathered itself together, and jumped clear of certain death.  It then rushed on with the others.

“Now, give me your hand, and we’ll see if we can’t find an easier place to cross,” said Pasmore to Dorothy.