“Bust through the bob-wire!” Slim rose in his stirrups and swung his quirt, whooping shrilly. He and Hilda, between them, turned the animals and headed them back. Presently they met two more small bunches, which they turned in like manner and took with them. When they got within sight of the pasture where the Flying M stock had been worked that morning, they saw that the herd was in a pretty well-established mill, the main bulk of the cattle sweeping in a great, brown, living, sweating circle. An occasional Three S man, or one of the Flying M hands, came galloping around on the edge of the surge. As Slim and Hilda rode gingerly across the prostrate fence, they heard a shot fired off to the right, toward the Ojo Bravo trail; another, then three in quick succession. Slim stopped like a pointer dog and threw his nose up, sighting in that direction. “Well, the colonel got there in time, that’s sure,” was his comment. Just then Burch came in sight, loping with the swing of the cattle. “Hello, Hilda!” he cried. “You made it all right.” They put their horses in alongside him and moved with him while he told them, in a few quick sentences: “Uncle Hank stampeded the cattle—only thing he could do—shook a blanket. We weren’t fixed to open fight—not a gun amongst us—them all armed. The cattle commenced to run, and everybody flew in to turn ’em and mill ’em. While we were at it, Uncle Hank rode up to me and hollered that the Flying M men were coming—and there was Marchbanks and the whole outfit. The rustlers cut and run for it.” “What shooting was that we just heard, d’you reckon?” “The colonel and two of his men went after the rustlers—out yonder. They must have overhauled ’em.” Burch rode on with the milling cattle, while Slim and Hilda pulled out. Presently Uncle Hank came to her and told her to go to the house and rest. “Oh, I couldn’t, Uncle Hank!” she declared. “Let me stay.” CHAPTER XXI ANOTHER CHANCE As the afternoon wore on, Hilda, helping to gather strays, watching always the westward trail for Pearse, began to lose hope. The colonel had not come back from his chase of the rustlers, but his men were here; again Uncle Hank came to her to say that they were full-handed now—no need for her to half kill herself; she’d better get to the house, wash up and have something to eat. With her eyes on the way down which Pearse might have come, she said, in a discouraged tone: “I’ll go out just this once more; then I will give it up and ride to the house; I suppose my face does need washing. I don’t feel as if I could eat any supper. But I’ll be glad to get to bed to-night.”