Dinsmore To The Rescue

It had seemed to 'Mona at first with each backward glance that the Indians were gaining fast on them, but after a time she knew this was not true. The sound of their shots became fainter. She no longer saw the spitting of the dust from their bullets and guessed they must be falling short.

Her eyes flashed a question at the man riding beside her. "We're gaining?"

"That's whatever. We'll make the cañon all right an' keep goin'. Don't you be scared," he told her cheerfully.

Even as he spoke, Ramona went plunging over the head of her horse into a bunch of shin-oak. Up in an instant, she ran to remount. The bronco tried to rise from where it lay, but fell back helplessly to its side. One of its fore legs had been broken in a prairie-dog hole.

Dinsmore swung round his horse and galloped back, disengaging one foot from the stirrup. The girl caught the hand he held down to her and leaped up beside the saddle, the arch of her foot resting lightly on the toe of his boot. Almost with the same motion she swung astride the cow-pony. It jumped to a gallop and Ramona clung to the waist of the man in front of her. She could hear plainly now the yells of the exultant savages.

The outlaw knew that it would be nip and tuck to reach Palo Duro, close though it was. He abandoned at once his hopes of racing up the cañon until the Apaches dropped the pursuit. It was now solely a question of speed. He must get into the gulch, even though he had to kill his bronco to do it. After that he must trust to luck and hold the redskins off as long as he could. There was always a chance that Ellison's Rangers might be close. Homer Dinsmore knew how slender a thread it was upon which to hang a hope, but it was the only one they had.