Straight out from the place of gray smoke four men and four horses were making their way across the slide. They were halfway across. But they had stopped. The down rush of Molly's horse had apparently given them pause. Now two men started ahead, one stood irresolute and one started to retrace his steps. It is a true saying that he who hesitates is lost. Straight over the irresolute man and his horse rolled the dust cloud whose centre was Molly's horse. When the dust cloud passed on it was much larger, and both the man and his horse had disappeared. The man who had started to retreat continued to retreat, and more rapidly. The two who had held on did not cease to advance, but they proceeded very slowly. "If that feller with the Winchester don't get us we're all right for a spell," Racey muttered. He knew that on their side of the slide for a distance of several hundred yards up and down the side of the mountain and for several miles athwart it the underbrush was impenetrable for horses and wicked travelling for men. There had been a forest fire four years before, and everyone knows what happens after that. In but one place, where a ridge of rock reared through the soil, was it possible to cross the stretch of burned-over ground. Naturally Racey had picked this one spot. Whether the posse had not known of this rock ridge, or whether they had simply miscalculated its position it is impossible to say. "Those two will shore be out of luck when they get in among the stubs," he thought to himself, as he waited for his strength to come back. But youth recovers quickly and Racey was young. It may be that the lead that was being sent at him and Molly Dale was a potent revivifier. Certainly within three or four minutes after he had cut the bridle Racey began to work his way up the rope to where his patient and well-trained horse stood braced and steady as the proverbial boulder. Monotonously the man behind the Winchester whipped bullet after bullet into the rocky face of the slide in the immediate vicinity of Racey Dawson and the senseless burden in the crook of his left arm. Nevertheless, Racey took the time to work to the right and recover the hat that a bullet had flicked from his head. Then he resumed his slow journey upward. Ages passed before he felt the good firm ground under his feet and laid the still unconscious Molly on the grass behind a gray and barkless windfall that had once been a hundred-foot fir. Then he removed his horse farther back among the stubs where it could not be seen, took his Winchester from the scabbard under the left fender and went back to the edge of the slide to start a return argument with the individual who had for the last ten minutes been endeavouring to kill him. CHAPTER XXIX HUE AND CRY "Did you hit him?" "I don't think so," replied Racey without turning his head. "Keep down." "I am down." "How you feel?" "Pretty good--considering." "Close squeak--considerin'."