When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped, but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on, stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses, leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house. CHAPTER XXI "DRAW--NOW--COWARD!" Here he slackened to a walk and, turning over, crossed into the road. He felt of his shoulder gingerly. It did not appear to be bleeding much, but the wound under his arm stung and burned and he could feel the warm blood trickling down his side, and along his arm, also. As he stood in the road extricating himself from the unusual manner in which he had harnessed his rifle to his shoulders, he was startled by the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Believing that the McGills were coming after him again, Buddy ran across the road, then hurried toward the river under cover of the wayside brush. He came suddenly upon a broken-down shack, and as the sounds of the galloping hoofs grew more distinct, Buddy dropped to his knees and crawled through a rent in the dilapidated fence and lay down in the weeds with his face toward the road, and waited for a few seconds. Then he thrust his head between the broken pickets and looked up the road. A horse was coming onward at a fearful, breakneck pace, and behind him followed three or four other horsemen. In the moonlight, Buddy could plainly see the white cloths around the foremost rider's head. It was Sap McGill on the dun horse. Judging from the terrific rate at which the lead horse was leaping over the road, Buddy felt sure that they would pass him by. The boy drew his head in and waited, breathlessly. Then Sap McGill dashed past, and just as he did so two shots rang out, and McGill tumbled out of the saddle and sprawled in the middle of the road, where he lay still, while his horse continued on. At this unexpected turn, a great light broke in upon Buddy, and his heart went apatter with joy. He knew now that the men following McGill were his own people. He scurried through the aperture in the fence, but the men had wheeled about and were galloping back as swiftly as they had come.