With a malignant scowl Cummings half turned in his saddle, and saying: 

“No, damn me, no; not while I live,” placed his revolver at the head of Chip’s mount and sent the ball crashing to its brain.

Down in its tracks shot the noble steed, the dark, rich blood jetting from the ghastly hole, and deluging Chip with its crimson flood.

Chip, with the address of an experienced horseman, had lighted upon his feet, his revolver still clutched in his hand.

The sudden fall of the leading horse had caused the remainder of the party to haul up short to avoid running horse and rider down.  This left the road clear before him, and Chip, dropping on his knee took a long careful sight at Cummings and fired.

A sudden swerve of Jim’s horse saved him, but uttering a cry of pain, Cook’s steed, struck in a vital point, stopped short, and trembling in every limb slowly sank to the ground.  Cook, taken so unexpectedly, had shot over his horse’s head, and now lay, unconscious, in the center of the trail, his two companions, driving the spurs deeper into the flanks of their almost exhausted animals, dashed down the banks of the dividing line and stood safe on Indian Territory.

The unconscious Cook was at once surrounded by the detectives and posse, and a generous dose of brandy poured down his throat brought him to his senses.

Chagrined beyond measure at the escape of his man, just when he was about to put his hand on him, and at the loss of his horse, Chip was in no humor to allow a technical boundary line to keep him from capturing his men, who, riding around the edge of an elevation on the prairie were now lost to sight.

“Brodey,” he said, turning to the ranger who had been the guide of the expedition from the time it started from Kansas City, “how far is it to Swanson’s ranche?”

“A matter of twenty-five miles, as the crow flies.”

“How far by the trail?”

“Well, Cap’n,” responded Brodey, reflectively, as he threw his knee over the pommel of his saddle, “lemme see.  The trail goes by that there belt of timber, then jines the stage-road to Allewe, an’ follows that a piece, then it shunts off to the west straight for the bluff thar, purty nearly a bee-line.  Thirty mile, sure—­mebbe less.”

“Is that the Indian Territory ’tother side of the divide?”

“Jesso—­Cherokee Nation.”

“What sort of a man is this Swanson?”

“Half-buffalo, half-painter, an’ other half crocodile.  He’s wuss than a half-breed Apache, an would as soon shoot a man as to drink, an’ Swanson’s a right powerful punisher of the whisky-jug.”

“Yes! yes!  I know all that, but is he cunning, shrewd, sharp, you know?”

“Got eyes like an Injun, ears like a coyote an’ a nose sharp as a gopher snake.”

“He must be a tough combination, but I’ll do it, all the same.”

“Do what, Chip?” asked Sam.