beyond the circle of the level world.



CHAPTER III
FLIGHT

Brick Willock, galloping toward the Southeast, frequently looked
back. He saw the desperadoes leap upon their horses, wheel about
in short circles that brought the animals upright, then spring
forward in pursuit. He heard the shouting which, though far away,
sounded the unmistakable accent of ungovernable fury. In the
glaring moonlight, he distinguished plainly the cloud of dust and
sand raised by the horses, which the wind lifted in white shapes
against the deep blue of the sky. And looking beyond his pursuers
toward the rude cabin where the highwaymen had so long held their
rendezvous, he knew, because no animate forms appeared against the
horizon, that the Kimball brothers lay where he had stretched them-
-one, senseless from the crashing blow on his head, the other,
lifeless from the bullet in his breast.

The little girl and her stepfather had vanished from the smooth open
page of the Texas Panhandle--and Brick Willock rejoiced, with a joy
new to him, that these escaped prisoners had not been pursued. It
was himself that the band meant to subject to their savage vengeance,
and himself alone. The murder of the child was abhorrent to their
hearts which had not attained the hardened insensibility of their
leader's conscience, and they were willing for the supposed spy to
escape, since it spared them the embarrassment of disposing of the
little girl.