standing. Follow me," and he dashed down the staircase into the street.
Dunn followed with difficulty; when he reached the door he was already
confronted by his breathless companion. "She's gone off on a run, and
I'll swear there was a man in the buggy!" He stopped and examined the
halter-strap, still fastened to the fence. "Cut! by God!"
Dunn turned pale with passion. "Who's got another horse and buggy?" he
demanded.
"The new blacksmith in Main Street; but we won't get it by borrowing,"
said Brace.
"How then?" asked Dunn savagely.
"Seize it, as the sheriff of Yuba and his deputy, pursuing a confederate
of the Injin Low--THE HORSE THIEF!"
CHAPTER VIII
The brief hour of darkness that preceded the dawn was that night
intensified by a dense smoke, which, after blotting out horizon and sky,
dropped a thick veil on the high road and the silent streets of Indian
Spring. As the buggy containing Sheriff Dunn and Brace dashed through
the obscurity, Brace suddenly turned to his companion.
"Some one ahead!"
The two men bent forward over the dashboard. Above the steady plunging
of their own horse-hoofs they could hear the quicker irregular beat of
other hoofs in the darkness before them.
"It's that horse thief!" said Dunn, in a savage whisper. "Bear to the
right, and hand me the whip."
A dozen cuts of the cruel lash, and their maddened horse, bounding at
each stroke, broke into a wild canter. The frail vehicle swayed from
side to side at each spring of the elastic shafts. Steadying himself by
one hand on the low rail, Dunn drew his revolver with the other. "Sing
out to him to pull up, or we'll fire. My voice is clean gone," he added,
in a husky whisper.
They were so near that they could distinguish the bulk of a vehicle
careering from side to side in the blackness ahead. Dunn deliberately
raised his weapon. "Sing out!" he repeated impatiently. But Brace, who
was still keeping in the shadow, suddenly grasped his companion's arm.
"Hush! It's NOT Buckskin," he whispered hurriedly.
"Are you sure?"
"DON'T YOU SEE WE'RE GAINING ON HIM?" replied the other contemptuously.
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