What was it? Oh, yes, he had been thrown from his horse. A wave of recollection passed over him, and his mind was clear once more. Presently he got to his feet and moved rather uncertainly toward Buck, for the horse was grazing quietly a few yards from him. But half way to the pony he stopped. Voices, approaching by way of the bed of Dry Creek, drifted to him. “He must ’a’ turned and gone back. Mebbe he guessed we was there.” And a voice that Bannister knew, one that had a strangely penetrant, cruel ring of power through the drawl, made answer: “Judd said before he fainted he was sure the man was Ned Bannister. I’d ce’tainly like to meet up with my beloved cousin right now and even up a few old scores. By God, I’d make him sick before I finished with him!” “I’ll bet y’u would, Cap,” returned the other, admiringly. “Think we’d better deploy here and beat up the scenery a few as we go?” There are times when the mind works like lightning, flashes its messages on the wings of an electric current. For Bannister this was one of them. The whole situation lighted for him plainly as if it had been explained for an hour. His cousin had been out with a band of his cut-throats on some errand, and while returning to the fastnesses of the Shoshone Mountains had stopped to noon at a cow spring three or four miles from the Lazy D. Judd Morgan, whom he knew to be a lieutenant of the notorious bandit, had ridden toward the ranch in the hope of getting an opportunity to vent his anger against its mistress or some of her men. While pursuing the renegade Bannister had stumbled into a hornet’s nest, and was in imminent danger of being stung to death. Even now the last speaker was scrambling up the bank toward him. The sheepman had to choose between leaving his rifle and immediate flight. The latter was such a forlorn hope that he gave up Buck for the moment, and ran back to the place where his repeating Winchester had fallen. Without stopping he scooped the rifle up as he passed. In his day he had been a famous sprinter, and he scudded now for dear life. It was no longer a question of secrecy. The sound of men breaking their hurried way through the heavy brush of the creek bank came crisply to him. A voice behind shouted a warning, and from not a hundred yards in front of him came an answering shout. Hemmed in from the fore and the rear, he swung off at a right angle. An open stretch lay before him, but he had to take his desperate chance without cover. Anything was better than to be trapped like a wild beast driven by the beaters to the guns.