"Look back!" cried Mescal. "Can you see them? Is Snap with them?"
"I can't see for trees," replied Hare, over his shoulder. "There's dust--
we're far in the lead--never fear, Mescal. The lead's all we want."
Cedars grew thickly all the way up the steeper part of the divide, and
ended abruptly at a pathway of stone, where the ascent became gradual.
When Silvermane struck out of the grove upon this slope Hare kept turning
keen glances rearward. The dust cloud rolled to the edge of the cedars,
and out of it trooped half-a-dozen horsemen who began to shoot as soon as
they had reached the open. Bullets zipped along the red stone, cutting
little puffs of red dust, and sung through the air.
"Good God!" cried Hare. "They're firing on us! They'd shoot a woman!"
"Has it taken you so long to learn that?"
Hare slashed his steed with the switch. But Silvermane needed no goad or
spur; he had been shot at before, and the whistle of one bullet was
sufficient to stretch his gallop into a run. Then distance between him
and his pursuers grew wider and wider and soon he was out of range. The
yells of the rustlers seemed at first to come from baffled rage, but
Mescal's startled cry shoveled their meaning.
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