He mounted the mare. Manzanita untied the roan, fought him a little to get the bridle reins over his head, and, when she had accomplished this, took the half-broken animal by surprise and vaulted on his back.
Bucking fiendishly, he bore her away toward the west line of the property, The Falcon following and protesting that he ought to ride the bucker.
“Ride! Ride!” she shouted back. “This horse couldn’t ditch me in twenty years—he’s an amateur. Let her out! They’ll miss us in a minute now.”
CHAPTER XV
FLIGHT
THE rapid development of the unlooked-for situation seemed to have bewildered Falcon the Flunky. One moment he had been overjoyed at the discovery that the girl he had loved almost from the first day he met felt the same toward him, that he had held her in his arms and kissed her. Now they were fleeing from the hand of the law. The biggest day of his life suddenly had been turned into a nightmare of improbabilities, a whirlwind of exotic happenings of which he had never dreamed.
After a run of a mile or more, the roan colt that Manzanita rode steadied down and ceased pitching and plunging. The girl directed their route of escape, leading the way over the illimitable sweep of the desert by an unmarked course. Away on their left blinked the lights of the camps, like great ships seen at a distance on the sea. On their right the mountains frowned down, black and mysterious and forbidding in their world-old vigil over the desert.
Since leaving Squawtooth the two riders had not spoken. Whether or not they were being pursued The Falcon could not tell, for Manzanita had not stopped even to listen. She kept the steadying roan to a swift gallop, swinging him from right to left to avoid the clumps of desert growth. The pinto mare followed him persistently. On and on into the night they rode. Their quick progress made conversation next to impossible.
They had been traveling two hours, perhaps, when the girl reined in and The Falcon drew up at her side.
“We’ll be obliged to let ’em blow,” she remarked. “That clip would kill them before morning.”
They slowed to a brisk walk, and as the greasewood was frugal here they kept side by side.