He swung his hat across the pinto's hind quarters and the animal leaped into the trail. He heard Jane cry out to him to stop. "Go on!" he shouted. "Go on! It's your job to bring help!" And he heard her go on, the horse floundering up the steep rise, and knew that she obeyed. Then he turned and looked out across the flat. Far down toward Cole's cabin was a shot. A riderless horse went past him, blowing with excitement. He crouched behind a boulder, gun in his hands, peering into the darkness. Others would not travel that trail that night so long as he was on guard.... The fight had been carried in both directions, further up into the Hole, on down toward the Gap. HC riders, partially assembled and identified, had closed on the outlaws, cut them off from the trail and for the space of many minutes there was no revealed action, each waiting for the others to show themselves. Again in the distance was the mutter of thunder and a brilliant, prolonged flash of lightning. The wind had subsided to breathless silence as if the heavens marshaled their forces for fresh outbursts. Beck started up as the clouds flared, looking quickly about. He saw a horse with an empty saddle. He saw a man standing waist deep in brush, a rifle at his hip, ready to fire. He could not recognize the man. Darkness; again, a silent lighting of the skies, and with that the stillness was broken. There was the sharp crack of a rifle far to his left, up toward the head of the Hole. None replied to the shot. A moment later the clouds sent out their flare again ... and this time two shots echoed. Beck started up with a low cry. Above on the trail he had seen Jane Hunter's pinto, making for the high country, and those two stabs of yellow flame had been aimed upward and toward the wall to which her path clung. It seemed to the man an age until lightning again revealed the earth. He had an impression of a horseman far toward the top of the trail and behind him another, riding hard; and lastly, Jane's pinto toiling bravely up the sharp climb. And as darkness cut in again two more fangs of flame darted toward her! Jane Hunter, without protection, wholly revealed by the lightning, was a target for merciless men, for men who had nothing to lose and at least a fighting chance to gain by stopping her!