Despite the quickness of young Burnet, he was able to bring his Winchester to a level only at the moment the steed was thundering out of sight in the darkness, but he let fly three times in rapid succession, reckless whether he struck rider or animal; but since the sound of the hoofs still came to him, he was chagrined at the conviction that he had missed both.
“But you haven’t escaped me yet,” he muttered, swinging himself into the saddle; “there is no horse in Texas or the Indian 241 Nation that can leave me behind; now, Thunderbolt, run him down!”
But, while the fates had been kind to Avon, in that he escaped death by the narrowest conceivable chance, they seemed equally well disposed toward the object of his wrath. The boast of the pursuer as to the fleetness of his mustang was warranted, and had the circumstances continued favorable for only a few minutes, he would have brought his young rider beside the fleeing steed, where the account between the two men must have been quickly settled.
But at the very moment of starting, the forelegs of Thunderbolt sank into a hole above the knees. His activity saved him from harm, but his rider took a header over his ears, sprawling on the wet grass in front with a shock that stunned him.
By the time he could rally and remount his mustang, the other was not only beyond sight, but his listening ear could not detect the slightest sound of the flying hoofs.
“He has escaped this time,” thought Avon, as he once more resumed his place in the 242 saddle, “but the account is still open and must be settled very soon.”
He was right, except that the account was closed not only sooner than he suspected, but in a manner of which he never dreamed.
Despite his alarming experience he had not lost his reckoning, and, facing toward the bed-ground of the herd, he had ridden but a short way, when the familiar sounds told him he was near the animals from which he was lost only a short time before.
“They are here, Baby, just as I thought.” The remark was made by Gleeson, who loomed up in the gloom as he spoke, with his mustang on a deliberate walk.
“I am glad of that, and, since no one beside you and me knows of our slip last night, we’ll keep it to ourselves.”