"By God! I'll kill Harrison at sight if he hurts a hair of her head," the boy cried, a lump in his throat. "Mebbe you will, mebbe you won't. Chad ain't just what you'd call a white man. He'll shoot out of the chaparral if he's pressed. Someone's going to git hurt if we bump into Mr. Harrison. It won't be no picnic a-tall to take him. He's liable to be more hos-tile than a nest of yellow jackets." "Leave him to me if we come up with him. I'll shoot it out with him," the boy cried wildly. Jackson grinned. "You're crazy with the heat, boy. What do you reckon I bought chips in this game for? I want a crack at the coyote myself." Phil and Jackson caught up with old Dan a mile or so beyond the point where the road to the Lazy B left the main traveled trail. "The other boys hitting the dust for the ranch?" asked Jackson. "Yep." "Yeager's got it right. They won't find Harrison there. He'll go through with his play. Chad's no quitter." Dan nodded. He was a reticent man of about fifty-five with a bald head and a face of wrinkled leather. "We'll git him sure," Phil spoke up, announcing his hope rather than his conviction. "Steve knows what he's doing, you bet." Yeager himself was not so sure. Doubts tortured him as to the destination of Harrison. Perhaps, after all, he might be making for some refuge in the hills and not for Pasquale's headquarters. He knew that as soon as word reached them the Lazy B riders would begin to comb the desert in pursuit. But what were a dozen riders among these thousand hill pockets of the desert? The best chance was to catch the man at some one of the few water-holes. But if he pushed on at full speed the chances were all in his favor considering the long start he had. The range-rider was astride the fastest horse in the Lunar stables. Steve had taken his pick of the mounts, for his work was cut out for him. Hitherto the luck had all been with Harrison. If Yeager had not met one of the old Lone Star boys, now riding for the Hashknife outfit, and stopped to join him in a long talk over their cigarettes, Steve would have reached Los Robles in time to spoil the man's plan. Or if he had gone direct to Mrs. Seymour instead of fooling away a good hour and a half in his room, he would have cut down his enemy's start by so much golden time. Now all he could do was to get every foot of speed from his horse that could be coaxed. He rode like a Centaur, giving with his lithe, supple body to every motion of the animal. But though he took steep hillsides of shale on the run, the pony slithering down in a slide of rubble like a cat, the rider's alert eyes watched the footing keenly. He could afford if necessary to break a leg himself, but he could not afford to have the horse suffer such an accident. Not for nothing had he ridden on the roundup for many years. Few men even in Arizona could have negotiated safely such a bit of daredevil travel as he was doing this night.