“Cheyenne,” said Mr. Wright, sinking his voice to a whisper. “Warm, too; that moccasin was on its owner not five minutes ago!”
Higginson Peabody took the buckskin footgear in his hands, which shook a little. The moccasin was warm. It could hardly have been otherwise since Mr. Wright had carried it in an inside pocket.
Mr. Wright glanced furtively about.
“We’d better skin out for Dodge,” said he.
Higginson Peabody wheeled, being quite in the humour for Dodge. He was on the threshold of saying so when a medley of yelps and yells broke forth. Higginson Peabody cast a look to the rear; a score of befeathered and ochre-bedabbled demons were in open cry not a furlong away.
Mr. Wright had made no idle brag when he said the pony bestrode by Higginson Peabody could outstrip an antelope. The latter gave that animal its head and the scenery began racing rearward in a slate-coloured blur. Mr. Wright’s pony was panting on the flank of its flying mate.
“Ride hard!” shouted Mr. Wright. “To be captured is death by torture!”
Higginson Peabody did ride hard. There was a rattle of rifles and six-shooters; the high lead ripped and whined and whistled—new sounds to the shrinking ears of Higginson Peabody! Now and again a bullet scuttered along the ground to right or left and threw up ominous pinches of dust. Suddenly Mr. Wright reeled in the saddle.
“Save yourself!” he gasped. “Tell Masterson and the boys——”
The rest was lost to Higginson Peabody, for Mr. Wright’s pony, evidently as badly wounded as its rider, began falling to the rear.