"Tommy, them cow-brutes are headed straight for Sweetwater Springs, and the Fillmore outfit's camped there to-night! Jim Halliday is there, and so is that measly Wellesly, if he hasn't gone back to town. He was out here two days ago. Emerson and the cattle will sure strike the Springs just about daylight, if they keep up their gait and nothing stops 'em!" Tuttle swore angrily under his breath. "That's just the snap they've been waitin' for all this time! Their only show to get Emerson, or to kill him either, is to come down on him half a dozen to one, and they know it. Well, if they kill him he won't be the first to drop--nor the last, either," he added with a little break in his voice, as he gave his sombrero a nervous pull over his forehead. "I reckon," Ellhorn replied, "they don't want to kill Emerson, as long as you and me are alive. They know what would happen afterward. Jim Halliday has got that same old warrant over there, and what they want to do is to shut him up in jail again." The first stinging drops of rain dashed in their faces and they buttoned their coats and galloped on in silence. Tuttle was the first to speak again: "What's that scrub Wellesly doing out here?" "I don't know, unless he came to bring 'em some brains. They need some bad enough. Wellesly and Colonel Whittaker have been ridin' around over the range for the last two or three days, though I didn't know about it till yesterday. I guess they've been so everlastingly beaten on every proposition that he thought he'd better come out himself and see if he couldn't save the day for 'em on something." They hurried on in the trail of the roar from the stampeding herd, but suddenly Ellhorn's horse struck his fore feet on the slope of a wet and slippery mound beside a prairie dog's hole. Before the animal could recover, its feet slid down the bank into the mouth of the hole with a forward jerk, and it came down with a groaning cry of pain. Ellhorn rose to his feet in the stirrups, and as the horse struck the ground he stood astride its body and with a quick leap jumped to one side unhurt. By the light of a match, which Tuttle sheltered under his sombrero, standing bareheaded, meanwhile, with the rain running in streams down his neck, Ellhorn examined the fallen horse. "He's broke both his forelegs, Tom. There's only one thing to do with him, now." Tuttle stroked the beast's nose. "I reckon so, Nick. You-all better do it." Then he turned away, while Ellhorn put his revolver to the horse's head and ended its pain. "Now, Tom, you go on after Emerson as fast as you can and I'll hoof it back to camp and get Bob's horse." "No, you-all jump on behind me, Nick, and we'll go on together. Emerson will need us both in the morning. If that crowd gets after him maybe he can stand 'em off till we-all get there. But he'll need us by daylight, Nick." "I 'low you're right, Tommy, but ain't you on that horse that always bucks at double?"