Rimrock Trail. J. Allan Dunn

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      "You're inside the town line. I——"

      "I won't be in two minutes. Git out of our road," said Sandy, his voice freezing in sudden contempt. He roweled Pronto and, with Sam even in the jump, they galloped through the half-ring without opposition. Horses were neck-reined aside to let them pass. The wind sang by them as they tangented off from the road. A shot or two announced the attempt of some to save their own faces, but no bullets came near the pair. The fusillade was sheer bravado.

      Pronto and the roan went at full speed, bellies low to the plain that streamed past, the manes whipping the hands of their riders, springing on sinews of whalebone through soapweed and mesquite, spurning the soil with drumming hoofs, night-seeing, danger-dodging, jumping the little gullies, reveling in the rush. Sandy and Sam sat slightly forward, loose-seated, thigh-muscles and knees feeling the withers rather than pressing them, balancing their own limber bodies to every movement of the flying ponies.

      A late moon climbed out of the east and scudded up the sky, silvering the distant peaks. For almost a mile they rode at top speed, then they settled down to a lope that ate up the miles—a walk at the end of three—then lope and walk again, until the giant cottonwoods of the Three Star rose from the plain, leaves shimmering in the moonlight, the ranch buildings blocked in purple pin-pointed with orange—the pin-points enlarging, resolving into two lighted windows as they passed shack and barn and rode into the home corral at last, to unsaddle, wipe down the horses and dismiss them for the time with a smack on their lathery flanks, knowing they would be too wise to overdrink at the trough, promising them grain later.

      Mormon tiptoed heavily out on the creaking porch with a husky, "Hush!"

      "What fo'?"

      "Molly's asleep. 'Sisted on waitin' up for you."

      "Well, we're here, ain't we?" demanded Sam. "Me, I got a scrape in my arm an' some son of a wolf spiled my saddle. Sandy, he sorter evened up fo' it."

      "Bleedin'?" asked Mormon.

      "Nope. Tied my bandanner round it. Cold air fixed it. Shucks, it ain't nuthin'! Sandy's got a green kale plaster fo' it. Come to think of it, I got ninety bucks myse'f."

      "You won?"

      "Did we win? Wait till we show you."

      Molly met them as they went in, her eyes wide open, all sleep banished.

      "Was it a luck-piece?" she demanded.

      Sandy produced the package of bills, divided it, shoved over part.

      "Your half," he said. "Five thousand bucks. Bu'sted the bank. An' here's the 'riginal bet." He showed the gold eagle, put it into her palm.

      "Served me, now you take it," he said. "I'll git you a chain fo' it. It's sure a mascot—same as you are—the Mascot of the Three Star."

      She looked up, her eyes, cloudy with wonder at the sight of the money, shining at her new title. They rested on Sam's arm, bandaged with the bandanna.

      "There's been shootin'," she said. "You're hit. Oh!"

      "More of a miss than a hit," replied Sam.

      Molly turned to Sandy. Anxiety, affection, something stronger that stirred him deeply, showed now in her gaze.

      "You hurt?"

      "Didn't hardly muss a ha'r of my head. Jest a li'l' excitement."

      "Tell me all about it."

      Sandy gave her a condensed and somewhat expurgated account to which she listened with her face aglow.

      "I wisht I'd been there to see it," she said as he finished.

      "It warn't jest the time nor place fo' a young lady," said Sandy. "Main p'int is we got the money for yo' eddication, like we planned."

      The light faded from her face.

      "Air you so dead set for me to go away?" she asked.

      "See here, Molly." Sandy leaned forward in his chair, talking earnestly. "You've got the makin' of a mighty fine woman in you. An' paht of you is yore dad an' paht yore maw. Sabe? They handed you on down an', if you make the most of yo'se'f, you make the most of them. Me, I've allus been trubbled with the saddle-itch an' I've wanted the out-of-doors. A chap writ a poem that hits me once. It stahts in,

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