As he flashed past the corner of the building, one of Larder's punchers raised a yell. Some well-meaning fool fired. Zung-g! the bullet buzzed overhead. Smack! Zung-g! Smack! Several bits of lead either ripped past his ears or tucked into the posts of the corral he was skirting. It was borne in upon him that the Larder employees were mistaking him for a horse thief, or some one worse.
He leaned over his saddle horn and began to ride. From the Larder corral to a clump of trees on the edge of a draw was a long hundred yards. As Billy galloped in among the trees he glanced over his shoulder. The corral concealed the horsemen. He pulled up at the edge of the draw, slid down the bank in a shower of stones and dirt, turned sharp to the left at the bottom and tore ahead. A mile farther on he looked back. No one was in sight yet.
"Ropin' themselves fresh horses," was his muttered verdict. "Damitall, running away was about the worst thing I could have done, after all! But what else was there to do, I'd like to know? If I'd stayed I'd have been plugged for a holdup and now I'm a heap likely to be lynched for a horse thief and a hold-up both."
He knew what he might expect from the brisk Larder outfit after Sam had given it his careful version of the stage robbery.
"And that goes double for the rest of the county," he said to himself, staring ahead over the flattened ears of his racing horse. "It looks like a cold day for Billy Wingo. I'll have to do some almighty tall hustling, that's a cinch."
Two miles and a half from the clump of trees at the back of Larder's corral he turned his horse and scuffled up the right-hand bank of the draw. At the top he looked back. He could see the clump of trees quite plainly and below it, in the bottom of the draw, were several black beads. He counted four beads. No doubt the remaining beads were spreading out to right and left to head him off.
"Thank Gawd for the mule stripe," he muttered piously, trotting onward. "We'll diddle 'em yet, old-timer."
Old-timer cocked an ear. His muscles were moving rhythmically, his long free stride was steady and collected. His breathing, while audible, showed no catchiness or other sign of distress. He was good for many miles yet, this chestnut with the mule stripe.
"Alla same, I've got to have another horse," Billy decided. "The quicker this feller gets back on the Larder range the better."
He didn't quite know how to get another horse. When he came in town to assume the duties of his office he brought with him from his ranch two horses besides the red-and-white pinto. His remaining horses he had turned out into the hills, upon whose tops, when the snow flew, they could grub up a living without too much difficulty. These hills lay sixty miles away beyond the Tuckleton range, and every horse on them would be carrying a grass belly.