“Great Cæsar!” muttered the lad, suddenly. “What’s that?”
His eye, once more turning far to the rear, had caught sight of several specks. One seemed to be a wagon; the others horsemen; and all were moving slowly in the opposite direction to which he was going.
Tom Clifton’s mind immediately became busy with conjectures.
“There’s surely something doing out here to-night,” he thought. “I wonder if that fellow chasing me doesn’t belong to that party yonder. Gee whiz! I guess Teddy Banes was right.”
When he looked around again a wave of relief shot through him. The man had evidently given up the pursuit, for the forms of horse and rider now appeared considerably smaller than before.
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Tom, fervently.
The nerve-racking pace, the jolting and bumping could come to an end. He tugged and sawed on the bridle; he yelled sharp commands, or uttered soothing words. But a spirit of madness seemed to have gripped the horse. With eyes distended, and snorting from fear, the animal was beyond all control.
“Running away!” cried Tom. “Great Scott!”
His nerves, already wrought to a high pitch of tension, tingled anew. The objects moving so rapidly past were making a sense of dizziness come over him. A fear, too, that his horse might stumble and he be thrown headlong set him to work desperately on the halter again.
And while he was doing this with every ounce of strength at his command two horsemen suddenly rode into view from a patch of timber only a short distance to the right.