“Ride Faster! Drive ’Em!”
Daylight suddenly showed faintly through the haze—the light of an open space. Joe Bindloss uttered a yell, hoping that they might there find rock footing and an end of the fire. Instead, his mustang burst out into a vast brown field, a grazing ground many acres in extent, from which rugged passes branched out in the distance.
As the riders emerged close on the heels of the rancher and Judy, a scene met their gaze that thrilled them anew.
Two bodies of horsemen, like themselves, were fleeing from the fire, which for some unknown reason had not yet leaped into the brown grass of the grazing range, and as they rode, both bodies of men were shooting.
It was a battle, a running battle with rifles.
Judy in one quick glance comprehended the situation and she saw more than did any others of her party. She knew the men off there were part of the band of rustlers who for so long had been a thorn in the side of all honest ranchers in the two great grazing valleys of the Cosos. She saw more than that—the verification of suspicions that she had harbored for some time, but that had crystallized only twenty-four hours before.
At about the same instant the Overlanders also made a discovery. The party of horsemen directly in front of them were quickly identified.
“It’s the boys!” screamed Nora.
“Ain’t dead, neither,” cried Joe Bindloss.
The Overland Riders pulled down their ponies.