Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have unseated a less practised rider.
Hanging to her rein was a figure that had leaped from the bank, and at the same time from the road before her arose a shadowy horse and rider.
“Throw up your hands,” commanded this second apparition with an oath.
Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink under him.
He knew what it meant, and was prepared.
“Stand aside, Jack Simpson, I know you, you d—d thief. Let me pass, or——”
He did not finish the sentence.
Jovita rose straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged her deadly malevolence down on the impediment before her.
An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away.
But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side.