“Hush!  It’s not Buckskin,” he whispered hurriedly.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t you see we’re gaining on him?” replied the other contemptuously.  Dunn grasped his companion’s hand and pressed it silently.  Even in that supreme moment this horseman’s tribute to the fugitive Buckskin forestalled all baser considerations of pursuit and capture!

In twenty seconds they were abreast of the stranger, crowding his horse and buggy nearly into the ditch; Brace keenly watchful, Dunn suppressed and pale.  In half a minute they were leading him a length; and when their horse again settled down to his steady work, the stranger was already lost in the circling dust that followed them.  But the victors seemed disappointed.  The obscurity had completely hidden all but the vague outlines of the mysterious driver.

“He’s not our game, anyway,” whispered Dunn.  “Drive on.”

“But if it was some friend of his,” suggested Brace uneasily, “what would you do?”

“What I said I’d do,” responded Dunn savagely.  “I don’t want five minutes to do it in, either; we’ll be half an hour ahead of that d—­d fool, whoever he is.  Look here; all you’ve got to do is to put me in the trail to that cabin.  Stand back of me, out of gun-shot, alone, if you like, as my deputy, or with any number you can pick up as my posse.  If he gets by me as Nellie’s lover, you may shoot him or take him as a horse thief, if you like.”

“Then you won’t shoot him on sight?”

“Not till I’ve had a word with him.”

“But—­”

“I’ve chirped,” said the sheriff gravely.  “Drive on.”

For a few moments only the plunging hoofs and rattling wheels were heard.  A dull, lurid glow began to define the horizon.  They were silent until an abatement of the smoke, the vanishing of the gloomy horizon line, and a certain impenetrability in the darkness ahead showed them they were nearing the Carquinez Woods.  But they were surprised on entering them to find the dim aisles alight with a faint mystic Aurora.  The tops of the towering spires above them had caught the gleam of the distant forest fires, and reflected it as from a gilded dome.

“It would be hot work if the Carquinez Woods should conclude to take a hand in this yer little game that’s going on over on the Divide yonder,” said Brace, securing his horse and glancing at the spires overhead.  “I reckon I’d rather take a back seat at Injin Spring when the show commences.”

Dunn did not reply, but, buttoning his coat, placed one hand on his companion’s shoulder, and sullenly bade him “lead the way.”  Advancing slowly and with difficulty the desperate man might have been taken for a peaceful invalid returning from an early morning stroll.  His right hand was buried thoughtfully in the side pocket of his coat.  Only Brace knew that it rested on the handle of his pistol.