‘Listen,’ said Blodget to his accomplice. ‘If they find me here, I may be recognized and arrested, if not for this, for other trifling affairs, which may end in neck-stretching. They can have no proof of our carrying off the girl, unless the wench is found. That is not possible, as no one can have any suspicion of the underground room.—They will search the house, and finding their search in vain, must leave the place. I will try to get off unobserved through the ravine at the back of the ranch, and catch the first horse I can find and make for the city. Let me hear from you as soon as they go, and we will concert future measures about the girl. I will be at our old place in Jackson street.’ As the villain concluded speaking, he drew and cocked his revolver, and noiselessly moved from the back of the house towards the ravine of which he had spoken. Hardly had the ruffian entered the ravine ere he was descried by Monteagle, whose party had been placed so as almost to surround the ranch. ‘Stop! or I fire,’ cried Monteagle. Blodget burst through the thicket, and Monteagle leaped his horse after him, but the fugitive turned sharply round the moment the horse’s hoofs touched the turf, and discharged his revolver. The darkness and hurry in which he fired prevented him from taking aim, and Monteagle remained unscathed, but the bullet crashed through the head of the horse, and the animal reared up, and then fell upon its side and expired. Blodget fled precipitately, and as soon as Monteagle could extricate himself from his dead horse, he rushed after him, calling loudly on his friends. Two of them followed him, but Blodget kept the advantage which he had gained by shooting the horse, and sped across the meadows with the swiftness of a hunted coyote. Beyond the ravine there was a high steep hill, thinly wooded, and on the farther side of the hill a thick and extensive wood. If he could gain this wood, he doubted not that he should be enabled to baffle his pursuers, and he made for the hill with the speed of a grayhound. He threw a hurried look behind him as he reached the foot of the hill, and then dashed up the ascent, for he heard behind him the shouts of his pursuers and the voice of Monteagle urging the two men to come on faster. The hill was steep, and, except where a scanty vegetable soil had been formed during successive winters by the decay of moss and leaves, its rugged side was covered with smooth pebbles, in which the fugitive’s feet sunk and slipped as he toiled upward. Until Monteagle reached the hill, therefore, Blodget lost ground, but when his pursuers commenced the fatiguing ascent they were again upon an equality.