He saw the first horseman lean sideways and fall.  He saw another lurch in his saddle and heard a cry of pain.  Then Wrangle, plunging in fright, lifted Venters and nearly threw him.  He jerked the horse down with a powerful hand and leaped into the saddle.  Wrangle plunged again, dragging his bridle, that Venters had not had time to throw in place.  Bending over with a swift movement, he secured it and dropped the loop over the pommel.  Then, with grinding teeth, he looked to see what the issue would be.

The band had scattered so as not to afford such a broad mark for bullets.  The riders faced Venters, some with red-belching guns.  He heard a sharper report, and just as Wrangle plunged again he caught the whim of a leaden missile that would have hit him but for Wrangle’s sudden jump.  A swift, hot wave, turning cold, passed over Venters.  Deliberately he picked out the one rider with a carbine, and killed him.  Wrangle snorted shrilly and bolted into the sage.  Venters let him run a few rods, then with iron arm checked him.

Five riders, surely rustlers, were left.  One leaped out of the saddle to secure his fallen comrade’s carbine.  A shot from Venters, which missed the man but sent the dust flying over him made him run back to his horse.  Then they separated.  The crippled rider went one way; the one frustrated in his attempt to get the carbine rode another, Venters thought he made out a third rider, carrying a strange-appearing bundle and disappearing in the sage.  But in the rapidity of action and vision he could not discern what it was.  Two riders with three horses swung out to the right.  Afraid of the long rifle—­a burdensome weapon seldom carried by rustlers or riders—­they had been put to rout.

Suddenly Venters discovered that one of the two men last noted was riding Jane Withersteen’s horse Bells—­the beautiful bay racer she had given to Lassiter.  Venters uttered a savage outcry.  Then the small, wiry, frog-like shape of the second rider, and the ease and grace of his seat in the saddle—­things so strikingly incongruous—­grew more and more familiar in Venters’s sight.

“Jerry Card!” cried Venters.

It was indeed Tull’s right-hand man.  Such a white hot wrath inflamed Venters that he fought himself to see with clearer gaze.

“It’s Jerry Card!” he exclaimed, instantly.  “And he’s riding Black Star and leading Night!”

The long-kindling, stormy fire in Venters’s heart burst into flame.  He spurred Wrangle, and as the horse lengthened his stride Venters slipped cartridges into the magazine of his rifle till it was once again full.  Card and his companion were now half a mile or more in advance, riding easily down the slope.  Venters marked the smooth gait, and understood it when Wrangle galloped out of the sage into the broad cattle trail, down which Venters had once tracked Jane Withersteen’s red herd.  This hard-packed trail, from years of use, was as clean and smooth as a road.  Venters saw Jerry Card look back over his shoulder, the other rider did likewise.  Then the three racers lengthened their stride to the point where the swinging canter was ready to break into a gallop.