"Distanced them! What do you mean?" said Yesslett, who was now riding alongside of Alec. "Listen! Can't you hear the galloping of their horses? They are not a hundred yards behind!"
"I hear them if you can't," said Martin, faintly. "This horse of yours cannot carry two of us, and still keep up his speed. Let me slip off, you could outstrip them then. They'd pass me by without seeing me. It doesn't matter if they don't, for I'm nearly done for."
Alec did not waste breath in contradicting him; he only turned his head sideways to Yesslett, clasping Crosby's body even tighter than before.
"Yes, I hear them now. I thought we had left them far behind. Give me back the reins, I can manage. Our work is not all done yet. Yesslett, it again depends on you. We will dash on ahead a little way, and then I'll turn Amber off the road. You tear on at full gallop towards Bateman; let them hear you, they may not notice that one of us has dropped behind. Which horse is it you have?"
"Herring."
"He'll carry you well enough. Take it out of him. They dare not follow you into Bateman. Now then for a dash."
Amber answered to Alec's voice and heel, for the horse had as brave a spirit as his master, and, although labouring terribly, managed a very quick burst of a hundred yards or so. Saying to his cousin, "Now Yesslett, keep on; ride like mad; don't spare the horse," Alec then suddenly wheeled to one side, and quietly pulled up some little way from the road. He could hear Yesslett tearing along, and a moment after, like the gust of a storm, three or four horses dashed madly past.
In a few minutes afterwards, thundering and splashing along the muddy road, Yesslett reached Badger's Creek. He recognised it as the place where he had turned off the road to ride to Norton's Gap that afternoon. Plunging along, at times fetlock deep in mud, he was passing Badger's Creek at racing speed, when a body of horsemen, coming in the opposite direction, managed to catch his foaming horse and pulled him up short. Yesslett, of course, could recognise no one of them, but he hoped they might be honest men, and hardly giving himself time to take breath, he began—
"I don't know who you are, but will you help me? My name is Yesslett Dudley; my cousin, Alec Law, and a wounded man are just behind, and Starlight and his men are after us. Here they come, here they come!" said the boy, mad with excitement.
"A' richt, Yasslutt. Ye're amang frens."