"I can't risk it," said Jed. "I'll need them to work my farm." The man moaned softly and went on to offer the next person with a horse or mule fifty dollars to ride it in the Run. "He'll get nothing," Pete said. "There isn't a saddle animal for sale or rent the length of the border. What time is it, Jed?" "Five minutes to twelve. We'd better get ready." Jed turned to kiss his wife, and he tried to be very calm. But his hands were trembling, and tears lurked in his eyes. He smiled at his children. "Be good, and help your mother," he bade. [Illustration] Then Pete and Jed swung into their saddles as a great hush descended on the border. All eyes were on the soldier who was to give the signal for this section. He had stopped riding back and forth and was waiting. His revolver was in his hand. As soon as the officer who was timing it ordered the soldier nearest him to do so, that soldier would give the signal. All the rest would pick it up and it would resound clear around the border. But it was not the soldier who shot. It was a man down the line. Cindy saw him very plainly, and he shot a full three minutes before high noon. But nothing could stop the assembled home seekers now. They surged forward, and almost instantly the Run formed a pattern. The lean, bearded man with the race horse shot ahead of all the rest. [Illustration] "They're all Sooners now," Granny Brent said, chuckling. "Oklahoma, the Sooner State." "Oh!" Ann Simpson gasped. She had turned to look at the wagon, and now she was rooted in her tracks. Her face was white, her hands clasped to her cheeks. Forgotten in the excitement, Jed's gun hung on a peg. Cindy leaped forward. She snatched the gun, jerked Sparkle's reins loose, mounted, and was away. Her mother's frantic "Cindy! Cindamine! Come back!" was drowned in the thunder of hoofs and the rattle of wagons. CHAPTER SIX _Mindy_ It seemed to Mindy, who did not even move, that somewhere she had seen all of this before. Cindy, always so quick to think and act, would naturally be the one to take her father's desperately needed gun to him. Alec, running toward the picket line to get Pete Brent's sorrel pony, would of course try to find Cindy and bring her back. Then Mindy realized why it all seemed familiar. It was because, in such a situation, her brother and sister couldn't possibly have done anything else. But try as she would, Mindy could not even imagine herself doing anything so spirited and daring. Alec bridled the sorrel pony, leaped on him bareback, and wheeled him past the Simpson wagon. "I'll find her, Mother!" he shouted as he sped toward the border. Alec was gone, and Mindy saw a great crowd of running men with, here and there, a rider dashing among them. Occasionally, like a white sail in the distance, she saw the white cover of a wagon.