Besides, whatever Jerry’s qualifications for his fame as the greatest rider of the sage, certain it was that his best point was not far-sightedness.  He had not recognized Wrangle.  After what must have been a searching gaze he got his comrade to face about.  This action gave Venters amusement.  It spoke so surely of the facts that neither Card nor the rustler actually knew their danger.  Yet if they kept to the trail—­and the last thing such men would do would be to leave it—­they were both doomed.

This comrade of Card’s whirled far around in his saddle, and he even shaded his eyes from the sun.  He, too, looked long.  Then, all at once, he faced ahead again and, bending lower in the saddle, began to fling his right arm up and down.  That flinging Venters knew to be the lashing of Bells.  Jerry also became active.  And the three racers lengthened out into a run.

“Now, Wrangle!” cried Venters.  “Run, you big devil!  Run!”

Venters laid the reins on Wrangle’s neck and dropped the loop over the pommel.  The sorrel needed no guiding on that smooth trail.  He was surer-footed in a run than at any other fast gait, and his running gave the impression of something devilish.  He might now have been actuated by Venters’s spirit; undoubtedly his savage running fitted the mood of his rider.  Venters bent forward swinging with the horse, and gripped his rifle.  His eye measured the distance between him and Jerry Card.

In less than two miles of running Bells began to drop behind the blacks, and Wrangle began to overhaul him.  Venters anticipated that the rustler would soon take to the sage.  Yet he did not.  Not improbably he reasoned that the powerful sorrel could more easily overtake Bells in the heavier going outside of the trail.  Soon only a few hundred yards lay between Bells and Wrangle.  Turning in his saddle, the rustler began to shoot, and the bullets beat up little whiffs of dust.  Venters raised his rifle, ready to take snap shots, and waited for favorable opportunity when Bells was out of line with the forward horses.  Venters had it in him to kill these men as if they were skunk-bitten coyotes, but also he had restraint enough to keep from shooting one of Jane’s beloved Arabians.

No great distance was covered, however, before Bells swerved to the left, out of line with Black Star and Night.  Then Venters, aiming high and waiting for the pause between Wrangle’s great strides, began to take snap shots at the rustler.  The fleeing rider presented a broad target for a rifle, but he was moving swiftly forward and bobbing up and down.  Moreover, shooting from Wrangle’s back was shooting from a thunderbolt.  And added to that was the danger of a low-placed bullet taking effect on Bells.  Yet, despite these considerations, making the shot exceedingly difficult, Venters’s confidence, like his implacability, saw a speedy and fatal termination of that rustler’s race.  On the sixth shot the rustler threw up his arms and took a flying tumble off his horse.  He rolled over and over, hunched himself to a half-erect position, fell, and then dragged himself into the sage.  As Venters went thundering by he peered keenly into the sage, but caught no sign of the man.  Bells ran a few hundred yards, slowed up, and had stopped when Wrangle passed him.