She started like a watch-spring
uncoilin', and as she spurts down the streets I leans clean over to her
mane and locks back and there I seen Dan standin' in the door with his
gun in his hand and the wind blowin' his hair. But he didn't shoot,
because the next second I was swallowed up in the dark and couldn't see
him no more."
"But it was no use!" cried the girl. "With Black Bart to trail you and
with Satan to carry him, he overtook you--and then----"
"He didn't," said Buck Daniels. "I'd fixed things so's he couldn't get
started with Satan for some time. And before he could have Satan on my
trail I'd jut a long stretch behind me because Long Bess was racin'
every step. The lay of the land was with me. It was pretty level, and on
level goin' Long Bess is almost as fast as Satan; but on rocky goin'
Satan is like a goat--nothin' stops him! And I was ridin' Long Bess like
to bust her heart, straight towards McCauley's. We wasn't more'n a mile
away when I thought--the wind was behind me, you see--that I heard a
sort of far off whistling down the wind! My God!"
He could not go on for a moment, and Kate Cumberland sat with parted
lips, twisting her fingers together and then tearing them apart once
more.
"Well, that mile was the worst in my life. I thought maybe the man I'd
sent on ahead hadn't been able to leave me a relay at McCauley's, and if
he hadn't I knew I'd die somewhere in the hills beyond.
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