The afternoon was well along now, and the captain, casting a glance at the sun, rose hastily to his feet.

“Come along,” he growled.  “We can do our chinning later on.  We’ll have all we can do now to get to camp before dark.”

“Before dark.”  Bert looked at his watch.  It was nearly six o’clock.  It would not be fully dark until eight.  That meant that the rendezvous of the gang was within two hours’ ride.  Allowing ten miles an hour, it meant a distance of perhaps twenty miles.

But that was assuming that they went on well-traveled roads, where the horses could be given their head.  Bert felt sure that they would not do this.  The conditions of their lawless life made it necessary for them to seek refuge in the wilds, where riding would be hard and slow.  Their lair was doubtless in some secluded valley or coulee, where they could hide the stolen stock, secure from discovery until a favorable opportunity offered to drive it out at night far from the plundered ranches.  The place, therefore, might not be more than fifteen miles distant.  Otherwise the outlaws would hardly be able to make it in the time mentioned, over the rough trails they would probably follow.  That this conjecture was correct was proved by the fact that, instead of returning to the broad road up which Bert had ridden, the men mounted their horses and turned their heads in the opposite direction up the ravine.

But how could he follow without detection?  If he let them get too far ahead, he might lose track of them altogether.  On the other hand, if he followed too closely they might hear the sound of his horse’s feet, or, turning in the saddle, might see his figure outlined against the sky.  In that case the game was up.  It would be a matter of flight, or an encounter in which, against such odds, he could look for nothing but capture or death.  And in either event, his plans for the breaking up of the band would come to nothing.

There was but one alternative.  He must follow on foot.

He was in superb condition and could do it easily.  Running was his game.  He had taken the measure of the fleetest runners in the country, and had, by so doing, won the right to represent America in the Olympic Games.  And when he had carried off the honors in the Marathon race over the crack flyers of all the world, he had made the distance of twenty-six miles, up hill and down, in a trifle over two hours and thirty minutes, or a sustained rate of more than ten miles an hour.  To be sure, he was then trained to the hour and at the top of his form.  But even now, although not strictly in training, his outdoor life and clean living had kept him in fine fettle, and he was fit to “run for a man’s life.”  A horse could beat him in a sprint, but there were few mustangs on the ranch that he could not have worn down and beaten in a stretch of twenty miles.

It was with no lack of confidence, therefore, that he reached his decision.