As the long strides of the horse carried him down the arroyo, the boy’s brain functioned to meet the emergency. He might turn to the right, circle the lake, make for Alkali Flat, and from there across the hills on the long stretch for the station. The alternative was to keep going north, strike across the range, and point for Carson. Even in this desperate emergency the morale of the service was the deciding factor. The mail was due at Carson in a few hours. With a pressure of his right knee he guided Nevada Jim up the gulch toward a mountain pass he knew above. If his horse had been fresh McClintock would have had small fear of the result. The Indians had no such ponies as the one he was astride. Their stock was inferior, just as their rifles were. Moreover, at their best they were wretched marksmen. But all the natural advantages of the white man were neutralized. Nevada Jim was far from fresh. Any rifle was better than none, and the pony express rider had to depend on a revolver, good for fast-short-range work but useless now. He was one against many, and already he could feel a wet splash on his shirt when he pressed his hand to his side. How bad the wound was he did not know, but it was certain that the long hard ride before him would not add to his strength. A boy of his age, trained in any other school except the hard outdoor one of the frontier, might have been forgiven for getting panicky under the circumstances. But Hugh wasted no nerve force in fear surges or in self-pity. He had a job to do. He must do it. That was the simple A B C of his reasoning. Quite coolly he set his mind to work on the problem of _how_ it was to be done, given the conditions that confronted him. One trouble was that he did not know those conditions. How long could Nevada Jim, after the hard hours of travel that lay between him and the station, keep going at the pace required? Was he himself likely to collapse suddenly from loss of blood? His best chance, he decided, lay in the speed of the bay. As soon as he had crossed the range—if he ever got across—he would try to run the Indian ponies off their legs. If they found they could not catch him, the Piutes would give up the chase after a few miles. The boy looked back. The Indians had swept out of the arroyo and were following him up the gulch. A dozen of them were bunched, with three or four trailing behind. But well in front of the group and going strong was a young brave mounted on a buckskin. At every stride his horse lengthened the distance between him and his companions. “Big Chief Heap-in-a-Hurry aims to collect me,” the boy told himself aloud. “Me, I got different notions. Get a hustle on you, Jim. This is one race where I don’t aim to throw down on myself.” The bay answered the call gallantly. With every ounce of bone and muscle Nevada Jim flung forward at the steep trail. The horse gave all it had to give, breathing heavily as it ploughed up the divide.