"Nope," shouted Buck as they galloped off.

"Somebody's goin' to get plugged full of holes," murmured the ranch
owner as he watched them kicking up the dust in huge clouds.

After they had forded a tributary of the Rio Penasco near the
Sacramento Mountains and had surmounted the opposite bank, Hopalong
spurred his horse to the top of a hummock and swept the plain with
Pete's field glasses, which he had borrowed for the occasion, and
returned to the rest, who had kept on without slacking the pace. As he
took up his former position he grunted, "War-whoops," and unslung his
rifle, an example followed by the others.

The ponies were now running at top speed, and as they shot over a rise their
riders saw their quarry a mile and a half in advance. One of the Indians looked back
and discharged his rifle in defiance, and it now became a race worthy
of the name-Death fled from Death. The fresher mounts of the cowboys
steadily cut down the distance and, as the rifles of the pursuers
began to speak, the hard-pressed Indians made for the smaller of two
knolls, the plain leading to the larger one being too heavily strewn
with bowlders to permit speed.

As the fugitives settled down behind the rocks which fringed the
edge of their elevation a shot from one of them disabled Billy's arm,
but had no other effect than to increase the score to be settled. The
pursuers rode behind a rise and dismounted, from where, leaving their
mounts protected, they scattered out to surround the knoll.

Hopalong, true to his curiosity, finally turned up on the highest