Bald Knob!"

"They both came mighty nigh handing in their checks."

"I didn't know that, though I knew, of course, he was fearless," Arlie
said.

"What's that?" Dick drew in his horse sharply, and looked back.

The sound of a rifle shot echoed from hillside to hillside. Like a
streak of light, the girl's pinto flashed past him. He heard her give
a sobbing cry of anguish. Then he saw that Steve was slipping very
slowly from his saddle.

A second shot rang out. The light was beginning to fail, but he made
out a man's figure crouched among the small pines on the shoulder of
Bald Knob. Dick jerked out his revolver as he rode back, and fired
twice. He was quite out of pistol range, but he wanted the man in
ambush to see that help was at hand. He saw Arlie fling herself from
her pony in time to support the Texan just as he sank to the ground.

"She'll take care of Steve. It's me for that murderer," the young man
thought.

Acting upon that impulse, he slid from his horse and slipped into the
sagebrush of the hillside. By good fortune he was wearing a gray shirt
of a shade which melted into that of the underbrush. Night falls
swiftly in the mountains, and already dusk was softly spreading itself
over the hills.