Mr. Masterson had an advantage over the Tomcat. He knew the country as a beggar knows his dish. At the end of the first three miles he struck into a short cut to the left. His design was to outride the Tomcat and cut him off at the ford of the Medicine Lodge. Once in the side trail Mr. Masterson, like a good rider, disposed himself in the saddle so as to save his horse; the latter—big and rangy—uncoupled into that long, swinging gallop which carries the farthest because it is the easiest of gaits. “It is the foxy thing to head this party off,” communed Mr. Masterson as he swept along. “Once I’m in his front he ought to be sure. A flying man never looks ahead.” The white alkali trail spoke hard and loud beneath the horse’s hoof-irons. There was a veil of cloud across the face of the sky. Then the west wind put it aside and the moon and the big stars looked down. A coyote punctuated the stillness with its staccato song. A jackrabbit jumped up and went bustling ahead, never leaving the paper-white streak of trail that seemed to fascinate it. At last, breath gone and wholly pumped, it had just instinctive sense enough to wabble a yard to one side and escape being run down by the galloping horse. A band of antelope brushed across in front like startled shadows. Mr. Masterson was not to be engaged by these earmarks of the hour and place; he must reach the Medicine Lodge in advance of the Tomcat. Lifting his horse to the work Mr. Masterson coaxed it through trail-devouring hours. Then there came an interference. It was midnight by the shining word of the moon when a low roaring, distant and muffled, like the beat of a million drums, broke on Mr. Masterson. It was up the wind and from the west. “What!” exclaimed Mr. Masterson aloud, and he pulled up his horse to listen. “It’s a good ways off as yet,” he continued. “It must be a hummer to send its word so far.” Then, patting his horse’s neck: “My sympathies will be all with you, old boy, when it reaches us.” Over in the northwest a cloud came suddenly up with the swiftness of a drawn curtain. One by one it shut out like a screen the stars and the moon. Mr. Masterson was on the ground in the puff of an instant. “It’ll detain him as much as it does me,” thought Mr. Masterson, whose mind ran always on his quarry. Mr. Masterson took a pair of hopples from the saddle and fastened the fore fetlocks of his horse. Then he stripped off the saddle. “I’ll leave you the blanket,” remarked Mr. Masterson, “but I’m going to need the saddle for myself.”