But none of the bullets struck Taylor. For the black horse, startled by Taylor’s playful movement when all his senses were strained to detect the location of his kind on the trail, had made an involuntary forward leap, thus whisking his rider out of the line of fire. And before either of the three men could shoot again, Spotted Tail had flashed down the trail—a streak of somber black against the green background of the trees. He fled over the hundred feet of straight trail and had vanished around a bend before the Carrington men could move their weapons around impeding branches of the brush that covered them. There was no stopping Spotted Tail now, for he was in a frenzy of terror—and he made a mere rushing black blot as he emerged from the timber and fled across an open space toward another wood—the wood that surrounded the big house. Standing on the front porch of the big house, nervously smoking a cigar, his face set in sullen lines, his eyes fixed on the Dawes trail, Carrington heard the shots. He sighed, grinned maliciously, and relaxed his vigilance. “He’s settled by now,” he said. He looked at one of the chairs standing on the porch, thought of sitting in one of them to await the coming of the three men, decided he was too impatient to sit, and began walking back and forth on the porch. He had thrown a half-smoked cigar away and was lighting another when he saw a black blot burst from the edge of a timber-clump beyond an open space. The match flared and went out as Carrington held it to the end of the cigar, for there was something strangely familiar in the shape of the black blot—even with it heading directly toward him. An instant later, the blot looming larger in his vision, Carrington dropped cigar and match and stood staring with wild, fear-haunted eyes at the rushing black horse. Carrington stood motionless a little longer—until the black horse, its rider sitting straight in the saddle, in cowboy fashion, reached the edge of the wood surrounding the house. Then Carrington, cursing, his lips in a hideous pout, drew a pistol from a hip-pocket. And when the black horse was within fifty feet of him, and still coming at a speed which there was no gauging, Carrington leveled the pistol. Once—twice—three, four, five, six times he pulled the trigger of the weapon. Carrington saw a grim, mocking smile on the rider’s face, and knew none of his bullets had taken effect. Unarmed now, he was suddenly stricken with a panic of fear; and while the rider of the black horse was dismounting at the edge of the porch, Carrington dove for the front door of the house and vanished inside, slamming the door behind him, directly in the rider’s face.