As their bullets pursued him,Willock lay along the body of the broncho,feeling his steed very small,and himself very large--and yet,despite the rain of lead,his pleasure over the escape of the child warmed his heart.The sand was plowed up by his side from the peppering of bullets--but he seemed to feel that innocent unconscious arm about his great neck;the yells of rage were in his ears,but he heard the soft breathing of the little one fast asleep in the midst of her dangers.
He had selected for himself,and for Gledware,ponies that had often been run against each other,and which no others of all Red Kimball's corral could surpass in speed.Gledware and the child were on the pony that Kimball had once staked against the swiftest animal the Indians could produce--and Willock rode the pride of the Indian band,which had almost won the prize.The ponies had been staked on the issue of that encounter--and the highwaymen had retained,by right of craft and force,what the government would not permit its wards to barter or sell.
The race was long but always unequal.The ruffians who had dashed from the scene of the cabin almost in an even line,scattered and straggled unevenly;now only two were able to send bullets whistling about Willock's head;now only one found it possible to cover the distance.At last even he fell out of range.The Indian pony,apparently tireless,shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind,sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers,a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths of the Great American Desert.