The old gun-man started as if he had seen ghosts.  His hands grew clawlike as he reached for the guns.  He threw open the cylinders, spilled out the shells, snapped back the cylinders.  Then he went through motions too swift for Shefford to follow.  But Shefford heard the hammers falling so swiftly they blended their clicks almost in one sound.  Lassiter reloaded the guns with a speed comparable with the other actions.  A remarkable transformation had come over him.  He did not seem the same man.  The mild eyes had changed; the long, shadowy, sloping lines were tense cords; and there was a cold, ashy shade on his face,

“Twelve years!” he muttered to himself.  “I dropped them old guns back there where I rolled the rock. . . .  Twelve years!”

Shefford realized the twelve years were as if they had never been.  And he would rather have had this old gun-man with him than a dozen ordinary men.

The Indian spoke rapidly in Navajo, saying that once in the rocks they were safe.  Then, after another look at the distant dust-puffs, he wheeled his mustang.

It was doubtful if the party could have kept near him had they been responsible for the gait of their mounts.  The fact was that the way the called to his mustang or some leadership in the one rode drew the others to a like trot or climb or canter.  For a long time Shefford did not turn round; he knew what to expect.  And when he did turn he was startled at the gain made by the pursuers.  But he was encouraged as well by the looming, red, rounded peaks seemingly now so close.  He could see the dark splits between the sloping curved walls, the pinyon patches in the amphitheater under the circled walls.  That was a wild place they were approaching, and, once in there, he believed pursuit would be useless.  However, there were miles to go still, and those hard-riding devils behind made alarming decrease in the intervening distance.  Shefford could see the horses plainly now.  How they made the dust fly!  He counted up to six—­and then the dust and moving line caused the others to be indistinguishable.

At last only a long, gently rising slope separated the fugitives from that labyrinthine network of wildly carved rock.  But it was the clear air that made the distance seem short.  Mile after mile the mustangs climbed, and when they were perhaps half-way across that last slope to the rocks the first horse of the pursuers mounted to the level behind.  In a few moments the whole band was strung out in sight.  Nas Ta Bega kept his mustang at a steady walk, in spite of the gaining pursuers.  There came a point, however, when the Indian, reaching comparatively level ground, put his mount to a swinging canter.  The other mustangs broke into the same gait.

It became a race then, with the couple of miles between fugitives and pursuers only imperceptibly lessened.  Nas Ta Bega had saved his mustangs and Shadd had ridden his to the limit.  Shefford kept looking back, gripping his rifle, hoping it would not come to a fight, yet slowly losing that reluctance.