Betty made no answer. They sped on. He tried to see her face but her hair was flying wildly. He wondered if her terror were freezing the heart in her. His own sensation at the moment was one of a strange sort of leaping gladness. After prison walls, this rushing through the night was like a zestful game. He felt that he had that even break which was ever all that he asked. If only Betty could feel as he did. His horse stumbled and then steadied and plunged on. The ground underfoot was rapidly growing steeper and more broken. The first slopes of the mountains were beneath them. The horses, though urged on, were not making their former speed. Now and then dry brush snatched and whipped at the stirrups; here and there a pine tree stood up black and still. And then Kendric knew that the riders behind were gaining on them. Zoraida's men would know every trail even in the dark, would know all of the cleared spaces, would thus avoid both brush and steeps. Kendric turned in the saddle. He made out dimly the foremost of the pursuers and heard the man's shout to his companions. "Betty," called Kendric. "Yes?" she answered, and it struck him that perhaps he had imagined her terror greater than it actually was; for her voice was quite clear and even sounded untroubled. "What is it?" "In ten minutes or so they'll overhaul us. They know the way and we don't. Further, we're apt to get a spill over a pile of rocks." "Yes, Jim," she answered. And still her voice failed to tremble as he had thought it must. "The old dodge is all that's left us," he told her. "When I say the word, pull up a little and slide out of the saddle. Let your horse run on and you duck into the brush." "And you?" "I'm with you, of course." And presently, when they were in the shadows of the ever-steepening mountain side, he called softly: "Now!" Until then he had never done Betty's horsemanship justice. He saw her bring her mount down from a flying gallop to a sliding standstill, he saw her throw herself from the saddle, he saw the released animal plunge on again under a blow from the quirt which Betty had snatched from the horn, the whole act taking so little time that it hardly seemed that the horse had stopped for a second's time. Kendric duplicated her act and ran toward the spot where she had disappeared. In another moment his hand had closed about hers, was greeted by a little welcoming squeeze, and he and Betty slipped side by side into the thicker dark at the mouth of a friendly cañon. CHAPTER XVIII OF FLIGHT, PURSUIT, AND A LAIR IN THE CLIFFS