“Old man, you're as clever as you are brave” muttered the bandit admiringly. “You unhook the off leader while I'm monkeying with the box, dig up a rifle and come for me riding bareback. Well, I'm not out to kill anybody if I can help it, and my horse has had a nice rest. I'll run for it.” He did. The rifle cracked again and the bandit's wide-brimmed hat rose from his head and sailed away into the sage. He looked back at it a trifle dubiously, but he knew better than to stop to recover that hat, in the face of such close snap-shooting. That express messenger was too deadly--and too game; so the bandit merely spurred his horse, lay low on his neck and swept across the desert. When he came to a little swale between some sandhills he dipped into it, pulled up, dismounted and waited. The sun was setting behind the gory hills now, and glinted on a rifle which the bandit drew from a gun-boot which a broad sweat leather half concealed. It was better shooting-light now; distances were not quite so deceptive. Suddenly the man on the white horse appeared on the crest of a distant sand-hill. The outlaw, leaning his rifle across his horse's back, sighted carefully and fired; the white horse went to his knees and his rider leaped clear. Instantly the pursued man vaulted into his saddle and rode furiously away. A dozen shots whipped the sage around him; one of them notched the ear of his straining mount, but in the end the bullets dropped short, the sun set, and through the gathering gloom the outlaw jogged easily up the long sandy slope toward Johannesburg. It was quite dark when he rode around the town to the north, circled through the range back of Fremont's Peak and headed out across Miller's Dry Lake, bound for Barstow. As for the express messenger, he removed the bridle from his dead horse and trudged back to the waiting coach. On the way he back-tracked the outlaw's trail until he came to the man's hat, which he appropriated. Donna Corblay was at the eating-house when the first down stage from Keeler came into San Pasqual with the news of the hold-up at Garlock the day before. The town was abuzz with excitement for an hour, when the news became stale. After all, stage hold-ups were not infrequent in that country, and Donna paid no particular heed to the commonplace occurrence until the return to San Pasqual two days later of the stage which had been robbed. The express messenger told her the story when he came to the counter to pay for his rib steak and coffee. He had with him at the time a broad-brimmed gray sombrero, pinched to a peak, with a ragged hole close to the apex of the peak. “I wanted to show you this, Miss Corblay” he said, as he exhibited this battered relic of the fray. “You do a pretty good trade in hats, and it's just possible you might have handled this sombrero in the line o' business. Ever recollect sellin' a hat to this fellow--his name's--lemme see--his name's Robert McGraw? It's written inside the sweat-band.”