Sneed lighted his pipe and stepped to the kitchen to get a drink of
water. Cheyenne glanced casually round the cabin, drew his feet under
himself, and jumped for the doorway. He heard Sneed drop the dipper and
knew that Sneed would pick up something else, and quickly.

Cheyenne made the saddle on the run, reined toward the corral, and,
passing it on the run, turned in the saddle to glance back. Sneed was in
the doorway. Cheyenne jerked his horse to one side and dug in the spurs.
Sneed's rifle barked and a bullet whined past Cheyenne's head. He
crouched in the saddle. Again a bullet whistled across the sunlit
clearing. The cow-horse was going strong. A tree flicked past, then
another and another.

Cheyenne straightened in the saddle and glanced back through the timber.
He saw a jumble of men and horses in front of the cabin. "They got just
two hosses handy, and they're rode down," he muttered as he sped through
the shadows of the forest.

Across another sun-swept meadow he rode, and into the timber again--and
before he realized it he was back on the mountain trail that led to the
valley. He took the first long, easy grade on the run, checked at the
switchback, and pounded down the succeeding grade, still under cover of
the hillside timber, but rapidly nearing the more open country of brush
and rock.

As he reined in at the second switchback he saw, far below, and going at
a lively trot, seven or eight horses, and behind them, hazing them along
as fast as the trail would permit, Little Jim.

"If Sneed's outfit gets to the rim before he makes the next turn,