closely, but by no means hurryingly, followed by the captain and Dick.

In the twenty-second mile Jan brought his followers to the door of a
settler's little two-roomed shack, and then, within the minute, was off
again along the side of a half-mile stretch of wheat. Captain Arnutt
dismounted for a moment to speak to a woman who came to the door. Not
half an hour earlier she said, she had given a drink of tea and some
bread and meat to a dark, thin man with a red handkerchief tied over his
head. "A Dago he was," she said. And Captain Arnutt bit hard on one end
of his mustache as he thanked the woman, mounted again, and galloped off
after Dick and Jan.

As he rode, the captain turned back the flap of his magazine-pistol
holster; but the precaution was not needed. Jan was traveling at the
gallop now, and the height of his muzzle from the ground showed clearly
that he was on a warm trail, which, for such nostrils as his, required
no holding at all.

It was under the lee of a heap of last year's wheat-straw that Jan came
to the end of his trail; his fore feet planted hard in the dust before
him, his head well lifted, his jaws parted to give free passage to the
deep, bell-like call of his baying. The man with the red 'kerchief tied
over his head was evidently roused from sleep by Jan, and though the
hound showed no sign of molesting him, yet must he have formed a
terrifying picture for the newly opened eyes of the Italian. Almost
before the man had raised himself into a sitting posture Dick Vaughan
had jumped from the saddle and was beside him.

"Don't move," said Dick, "and the dog won't hurt you. If you move your
hands he'll be at your throat. See! Better let me slip these on--so! All