Far off on the opposite side she made out a lone horseman riding at a full run along the sidehill above the cows as he made a supreme effort to reach the head of the run. The Three Bar men split and streamed up both sides of the bottoms. The flashes had ceased except for brief, quivering plays of less than a second's duration. She hung her spurs into Papoose and trusted to his footwork. The swift little horse passed one rider, then another. There were only the rumble of hoofs and the crazed bawling of cows to guide her as she drew near the rear of the herd. A half-flare showed the pinto a bare twenty yards ahead, with Harris putting him at the slope to pass the cows. She swung her own horse after him and she felt the frequent skid of his feet on the treacherous sidehill. Papoose braced on his haunches and slid down a precipitous bank, buckled up the far side and down again, then swooped across a long flat bench. Three times she felt the heaving plunge and jar as the little horse skimmed over cut-bank coulees and washes which her own eyes could not see in the dripping velvet black. From the sounds below she knew they were well up on the flanks of the run and nearing the peak. The stampede seemed slowing. A long, wavering flash revealed Harris a dozen jumps ahead. Papoose followed the paint-horse as Harris put Calico down the slippery sidehill and lifted him round the point of the herd. In the same flash Billie had seen two slickers out before the peaks of the run, flapping weirdly in the faces of the foremost cows. This accounted for the slowing-up she had sensed. Two of her men were before them and she wondered how this had come to pass. The lightning-play broke forth once more. She saw two riders swinging round the opposite point. The two slickers were working in the center. Harris's gun flashed six times. She jerked her own and rolled it. The two riders who had just rounded the far point joined in. Cows in the front ranks held back from this fearsome commotion out in front. Others, driven by the pressure behind, forged past them, only to hold back in their turn as the guns flashed before their eyes. The storm ceased as suddenly as it had begun and for two miles she rode in inky darkness. The last mile was slower. It was showing gray in the east and the night run had spent its force. The herd stopped and the cows gazed stupidly about, standing with drooping heads and heaving sides. Three Bar men showed on both flanks and in the rear. They had held the drove intact and prevented its splitting up in detachments and scattering through the night. Horne and Moore rode over to them and for the first time the girl noticed that the two men who had wielded slickers out in front of the run were nowhere to be seen. "Who was the pair out ahead?" Moore asked. "And what swallowed 'em up?" Harris shook his head. "Billie and I were the first to make the front," he said.