Yet the bragging cowpuncher was almost forced to eat his words!
True to his promise, Ki Yi was doing his best to hold the attention of the lone horseman by sending bullet after bullet in his direction.
But the Midnight Raider was clever, and, safe in the cover of the darkness, he stopped firing to discover what had become of his other pursuer.
As he beheld him leaping his horse over the waving grass, he grinned.
“The surest way to stop him is to drop his horse, too,” he muttered to himself. And, taking careful aim, he waited until Deadshot was within less than two hundred yards of him, then fired.
But his second shot was not so lucky as his first.
Instead of tumbling the pony over, the shell sailed harmlessly over the cowpuncher’s head.
“So that’s where you are, eh?” snapped Deadshot, as he gauged the direction of the raider. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
And, as he uttered the words, he threw his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Realizing that he had failed of his purpose, the lone horseman was too shrewd to linger, and, whirling his pony, headed for his hiding place, with the Double Cross cowboy in hot pursuit.