Shortly swore silently. "All right, ma'am," he said, aloud; "I reckon we'll have to handle it without him! Some of the boys of the night herd are hurt, most likely--mebbe worse. If you'd sort of look after them--mebbe--" He broke off short when he saw riders rushing from the corral toward the house. "I'll stop at Joe Hamlin's place an' send Ruth over, to help you. We can't spare any men--there's a horde of them devils!" He was leaping for his horse with the last words, and in an instant he had joined the other riders who had paused, tentatively, near the edge of the porch, having seen him. They fled, a dark mass against the dull shadows of the valley, sweeping up the big slope toward the plains. Blackburn, the range boss, was leading, with Shorty riding close beside him. In the dim distance they could see the herd, spreading wide over the level, running fast in the dust cloud that still followed them. The Circle L men had not ridden more than a mile after striking the level when Blackburn saw some blots detach themselves from the larger blot--a number of them, like stray wisps of clouds straggling behind a storm. "They're droppin' back to pot-shot us," Blackburn said to Shorty. He yelled at the men behind, warning them, and the group split up, spreading out, though not reducing the breakneck speed at which they had been riding. They had not gone far after Blackburn shouted his warning when a puff of white smoke dotted the luminous haze ahead, and a bullet whined close to Blackburn. "Rifle!" said Blackburn, grimly. There were still three Circle L men at the line camps on the range; five had been left behind in the valley when the attack had been made; and only twenty others, including Blackburn, were left to cope with the rustlers. Blackburn cast a worried glance at them. He had plunged out of the bunkhouse with the other men in time to catch a glimpse of the outlaws as they went by with the herd, and he had roughly estimated their number at fifty. The odds were great, and the advantage lay with the pursued, for they could select ambuscades and take terrible toll from the Circle L men. Yet Blackburn was determined. He yelled to the others to take advantage of whatever cover they could find; and he saw them slide from their horses, one after another, and throw themselves into a shallow depression that ran erratically north and south for some distance over the plains. Before they reached the depression, however, there had come more white puffs of smoke from the space ahead of them, and Blackburn saw two Circle L men slide from their horses with a finality that brought a savage glare into his eyes.