Tenlow's gun cracked. A spray of dust rose instantly ahead of Boyar.
"Look! Look!" cried Louise. The deputy, angered out of his usual judgment, spurred his horse directly down the footless shale that the tramp had ridden across diagonally. "Look! He can't—The horse—! Oh!" she groaned as Tenlow's pony stumbled and all but pitched headlong. "The other man—knew better than that—" she gasped, turning to the boy. "He waited—till he struck rock and brush before he turned Boyar."
"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, grinning. But the grin died to a gasp. A burst of shale and dust shot up from the hillside. They saw the flash of the cinchas on the belly of Tenlow's horse as the dauntless pony stumbled and dove headlong down the slope, rolling over and over, to stop finally—a patch of brown, shapeless, quivering.
Below, Overland Red had curbed Boyar and was gazing up at a spot of black on the hillside—Dick Tenlow, motionless, silent. His sombrero lay several yards down the slope.
"Oh! The horse!" cried Louise, chokingly, with her hand to her breast.
As for Dick Tenlow, lying halfway down the hillside, stunned and shattered, she had but a secondary sympathy. He had sacrificed a gallant and willing beast to his anger. The tramp, riding a strange pony over desperately perilous and unfamiliar ground, had used judgment. "Your friend is a man!" she said, turning to the boy. "But Dick Tenlow is hurt—perhaps killed. He went under the horse when it fell."
"I guess it's up to us to see if the sheriff gent is done for, at that," said the boy. "Mebby we can do something."
"You'll get arrested, now," said the girl. "If Dick Tenlow is alive, you'll have to go for help. If he isn't...."
"I'll go, all right. I ain't afraid. I didn't do anything. I guess I'll stick around till Red shows up again, anyhow."
"You're a stranger here. I should go as soon as you have sent help," said the girl.