"Whoop! you're right, Harry, for there he goes lickety-split right now!" cried Jimmy, eagerly pointing with an extended hand. Looking in that direction they could all see a solitary figure on horseback, speeding over the sun-kissed plain with all the haste possible. It was undoubtedly Ally Sloper, who had finally reached the conclusion that as he would be kicked off the place anyway after his employer had been convinced of his guilt, perhaps he had better not wait upon the order of his going but take a hasty departure. He was spurring his pony "for keeps" as Jimmy observed. Shortly afterwards a bunch of the punchers broke away from the saddle corral and went swiftly in the wake of the fleeing reprobate. "Look at him wavin' his hat at the crowd!" exclaimed Jimmy. "Sure I'd hate to be in his boots right now. There must be some hosses just as good in that bunch, and look at 'em ride, will you? I kind of think Ally will be sorry for showin' such a lot of hurry to clear out. He must a got cold feet athinkin' of facin' his boss. He's made a big mistake, I'm tellin' you." Ned said nothing, but he had read the treacherous puncher as a shrewd rascal, and had an idea Ally Sloper must know what he was doing. "He gave 'em a good run for their money, boys," Jimmy loudly declared, "just look how tired their poor old ponies seem to be, aholdin' their heads hangin' low, like they'd covered forty miles. But I don't see our friend, Ally, among them. And I guess now he must have got his medicine." "Wait and ask Skinny there, who's heading the lot," Jack advised him; for he noticed the little smile on Ned's face and believed the scout master was not so positive as Jimmy seemed to be regarding the outcome of the mad race. Skinny looked gloomy and, indeed, there were few smiles among the seven who had so gleefully started out in his company to overhaul the fugitive and give him a little token of their warm regard. "Did you overtake him, Skinny?" Harry called out as the returning band trotted past, their ponies lagging fearfully. "Not so's you could notice the same, sir," replied the stout puncher who answered to so misleading a name. "Then his broncho was better than any of your mounts, I suppose?" Harry continued. The cow punchers started grumbling at a great rate, and said some pretty ugly things about the absent one. "Seems like he was too slick for us, sir," Skinny went on to say, dejectedly. "Co'se we might a cort up with Ally if things'd a been right and proper; but say, it wasn't long before he started to run away from the hull outfit, and we reckons as how the old fox he must a doped all the ponies but his own mount!" CHAPTER XVIII. MORE TROUBLE AHEAD.