“Yes--_you_! I will go myself.” He jumped at her as she sprang into his saddle. She saw the movement. His lariat hung at the saddle-horn. She brought it down on his wrist. The same movement started the high-strung little roan, already a-quiver with fear. His heels clattered against the bars; Belle, astride like a man, her calico skirts tucked about her hips, was riding after the red cloud, swinging wide into the sage-brush to pass them. The roan had a dash of the thoroughbred. He was the swiftest thing coursing that day in the four-cornered race between cattle, cowboys, hunted team, and woman, yet he had two hundred yards the worst of his start. But, like a thoroughbred, he caught the bit and shook out his dapple mane, and laid his belly to the earth as he skimmed. Over sage-brush, over treacherous ant-hills, tangling gopher-holes he sped, the reins loose, for he knew his work. Two cowboys, caught in the press, fighting, swearing, striking brutally at heads and horns as they were borne on, called to her in warning; but the roan rounded the pack, shook himself free, and galloped on. And then Belle saw what she had feared. Knowing their peril, but ignorant of the cause, the two Englishmen were hurrying on ahead, with the carcass still bumping from the tail-board. The cattle in the road, where the running was freer, had gained upon those on the flanks. They were going in a wedge, with the speed of an express train. The cows, fleeter and fiercer than the males, were leading on. Half a dozen cowboys skirmished before, shooting and lashing out desperately, trying to back-fire by a counter-panic, taking chances of life with every gopher-hole. But there was no checking that mass; when a steer flinched before the heavy whip, he was pushed on from behind. And ever they bellowed, with a note of tigers in their voices. A moment Belle ran before the herd; then calling to the roan, who understood as only a cow-horse can understand, she cut an oblique course across the herd’s face. She gained the road; the herd was behind her, and the roan, gathering his nerve for a final spurt, made for the wagon. She shouted, but the roar behind drowned her voice, and so she reached for the holster, where Emilio kept his knife. As she whipped it out and drew even, reaching for the carcass, the wagon slackened and stopped. Her own horse swerved in his course, and shot past before she could check him. The off-horse, what with fear and exhaustion, had stumbled and fallen dead. And the wedge was coming on, now but a quarter of a mile away. Deadly as was their fear, the two Englishmen, who had jumped to the ground, stood and stared to see her turn in beside the standing horse and, without any ceremony, cut his traces and reins. He reared and plunged; Justin caught his bridle. “Mount quick!” she shouted. And before he could grasp the situation she had pushed Dudley to her roan, almost thrown him into the saddle, and mounted behind.