Turn Buck loose when you leave. He'll stay around
and come when I whistle."
He made a run for it, zigzagging through the sage-brush so
swiftly as to offer the least certain mark possible for a
sharpshooter. Yet twice the rifle spoke before he reached the
cottonwood.
Meanwhile Mac had fastened the handkerchief of his mistress on
the end of a switch he had picked up and was edging out of range.
His tense, narrowed gaze never left the bush-clump from which the
shots were being pumped, and he was careful during their retreat
to remain on the danger side of the road, in order to cover
Helen.
"I guess Bannister's right. He don't want us, whoever he is."
And even as he murmured it, the wind of a bullet lifted his hat
from his head. He picked it up and examined it. The course of the
bullet was marked by a hole in the wide brim, and two more in the
side and crown.
"He ce'tainly ventilated it proper. I reckon, ma'am, we'll make a
run for it. Lie low on the pinto's neck, with your haid on the
off side. That's right. Let him out."
A mile and a half farther up the road Mac reined in, and made the
Indian peace-sign. Two dejected figures came over the hill and
resolved themselves into punchers of the Lazy D.
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