“True, Ned?”
“As true as mother’s heart. We’ll take the girls?”
“Ned will help Tom.”
A sigh followed the youth’s words, and his lips closed with the fearful determination behind it.
Half an hour later the party reached the mountains, and, far above the level plain, Tom Kyle drew a highly ornamented field glass from beneath his jacket, and turned it toward the Apache village.
A moment later an oath burst from his lips. He had descried a black mass moving toward the mountains.
Shackelford took the glass.
“Chased, by Joshua!” he exclaimed; “but if we manage it right, they won’t catch us.”
“No,” said the renegade, “but we must prepare for a long race. They’re far away, as yet, and we have a few moments here.”
The next moment they had dismounted, for the purpose of tightening their steeds’ girths. Frontier Shack was busily employed in this operation, when a loud neigh saluted his ears, and looking down the pass, he beheld a great iron-gray horse trotting forward.