was made for, and went to work. I don't feel that, under the
circumstances, it's any disgrace to own that I was scared. I didn't hear
any more little singing birds fly past, so I straightened up enough to
look around and see what was doing in the way of pursuit.

One glance convinced me that my pursuers weren't going to sleep in their
saddles. One of them, on a little buckskin that was running with his ears
laid so flat it looked as if he hadn't any, was widening the loop in his
rope, and yelling unfriendly things as he spurred after me; the others
were a length behind, and I mentally put them out of the race. The
gentleman with the businesslike air was all I wanted to see, and I laid
low as I could and slapped Shylock along the neck, and told him to bestir
himself.

He did. We skimmed up that trail like a winner on the home--stretch, and
before I had time to think of what lay ahead, I saw that fence with the
high, board gate that was padlocked. Right there I swore abominably--but
it didn't loosen the gate. I looked back and decided that this was no
occasion for pulling wires loose and leading my horse over them. It was no
occasion for anything that required more than a second; my friend of the
rope was not more than five long jumps behind, and he was swinging that
loop suggestively over his head.

I reined Shylock sharply out of the trail, saw a place where the fence
looked a bit lower than the average, and put him straight at it with quirt
and spurs. He would have swung off, but I've ridden to hounds, and I had
seen hunters go over worse places; I held him to it without mercy. He laid
back his ears, then, and went over--and his hind feet caught the top wire
and snapped it like thread. I heard it hum through the air, and I heard
those behind me shout as though something unlooked-for had happened.