Molly was crying, even though she rode at a breakneck pace.
“Don’t—don’t let them take me back,” she begged.
“They won’t!” Johnny cried grimly. “You’ll never marry Aaron Gallup! I’ll see to that.”
CHAPTER XIX
“COME AND GET HIM!”
Long before Johnny’s party made the hills they could see that they were closely followed. The dust cloud in back of them came on apace. For an hour the fugitives held their advantage. After that the pursuers’ fresh horses began to gain.
“You think we make the mine?” Johnny cried to Charlie Paul.
Charlie weighed his answer before delivering it. “Mebbe, I guess we make um.”
The Indian patted his rifle and pulled up his horse. Johnny nodded. In another second they had left Charlie far behind. Johnny strained his ears for sound of the Indian’s firing. It came, then, a quick rat-tat-tat-tat! Other guns began to roar. The cañon which Johnny and Molly were ascending began to echo and reëcho the shooting.
They kept on, Molly half mad, Johnny watching their horses. Some time later Charlie Paul caught up with them, his horse dripping lather.
“We make um mine now,” he said with a grin.