The Lakewood boys on the Lazy S

by L. P. Wyman

For a half-hour he pushed on as fast as he dared urge the horse, stopping to listen every few minutes. But no sound, save the rustle of the tree-tops as hey swayed in the light breeze, came to him. Whether or not he was gaining on the man he could not tell, but he had seen no sign of him when he reached the top of the mountain.

"He must be making good time," he thought as he paused to allow Satan to get his breath. "I wonder how far they'll follow the trail." Then the thought struck him that he was doing a very foolish thing to expose himself there where there were no trees to hide him from view and he at once started to follow the trail down the other side. "I must keep my eyes open for a side trail," he thought a few minutes later as he again plunged into the thick forest.

He had gone, perhaps, a mile from the top when his eye caught sight of a narrow path running off toward the north. The place where it branched off the main trail was just beyond a huge pine tree and was so well hidden that, had he not been on the watch for just such a thing, he would never have seen it.

"Now I wonder," he mused as he drew rein. Then he slipped from the saddle and closely scrutinized the entrance to the narrow path. There had been no rain for several weeks and the ground was very hard and dry, but his knowledge of woodcraft stood him in good stead and he had little trouble in reading that several horses had turned off there not long since. The pathway was so narrow and filled with rocks that it seemed to him almost impossible that a horse could traverse if, and, after a moment's thought, he decided to leave Satan there and follow the new path on foot.

He led the horse into a deep thicket where there was little likelihood that he would be seen by any one passing along the trail and tied him to a small sapling. Then he plunged into the narrow trail jumping from rock to rock the better part of the time. He figured that he could probably make better time on foot than they would make on horseback, as they would be obliged to go very slowly or risk breaking a horse's leg. It got worse as he went along and had it not been for unmistakable signs, which his trained eye was able to read, he would not have believed it possible that a horse could get over the ground.

"I must be gaining on them," he thought after he had covered what he judged was a mile from the main trail.

A moment later a rattlesnake gave his ominous warning only a foot or two in front of him as he reared his ugly head above a rock and the boy jumped to one side so quickly that he slipped from a rock and came down in a heap, giving his right foot a sharp wrench. The pain, for an instant, made him sick but he crawled hastily backward until he was several feet away.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fish," he thought as he stood up and tested his weight on the injured leg.

To his great joy, however, he found that it was only a slight sprain and that he could bear his weight on it without causing a great amount of pain. For a moment he seriously considered the advisability of giving it up and going back, but he was not made of the stuff that gives up easily and he determined to push on for a while at least. But another sharp rattle in front fold him that an enemy was protesting his right of way. He had an automatic in his pocket and, as he was a good shot, he knew that there would be little difficulty in disposing of the protestor were it not for the fact that the shot would be certain to alarm the men somewhere ahead of him.

"That would never do," he thought as he picked up a stone about the size of his fist.