Go!—Run for your life! Let me die—knowing—you got away—your promise—”

Bell’s words failed, but the look in his eyes was one Wade could not disobey. It wrung the words, “I’ll keep my promise” from him. He passed a swift shaking hand over Bell’s pallid face, and it appeared that with that first and last caress a beautiful light began to fade in the big wide eyes.

Shrill yells brought Wade erect. He shoved the rifle home in its sheath and in a single spring made the saddle. The spirited horse leaped as from a catapult. Above the yells and shots, Mahaffey’s stentorian voice pealed out:

“Ride the man down!”

CHAPTER THREE

HEAVY gunshots close behind Wade as he spurred his horse n into flight caused him to turn in the saddle. Bell was sitting up, his hands extended with red-flashing guns. His shots upset the charging band of rangers. They spread on each side of the road to give the elm a wide berth. One ranger toppled from his saddle and another had to be supported. Wade saw Bell fall forward on his face.

Wade let out a terrible cry and turned his dimmed gaze ahead. Simm Bell had expended his last ounce of strength to halt the rangers for a few moments, in which time he knew Wade’s fleet horse would get far in the lead. That was the Texas outlaw’s last gesture. Wade knew he had seen his father die.

The abrupt transition from hate and blood lust, from iron nerve that scorned death for himself, to the anguish of finding his father only to lose him the same moment, and the realization of the terrible need of escape to keep his promise,—this rending change bowed Wade in his saddle, exceeding the sum of all the bitter moments of his life. It worked through him like a convulsion, his physical being at the mercy of the violence of his mental strife. To flee for his life—to resist halting and fighting those rangers with his last gasp—this took strength and will born of the exceeding love and grief that transformed him.

It seemed that his mind received a strange flashing illumination in which the blackness disappeared. He would escape. He would live to fulfill the pledge he had made his father. It gave him such unquestioning faith that no pursuit, no hardship, no future menace could ever eradicate it.

When Wade raised his head again to look back he saw six rangers in pursuit some three hundred rods behind. Two of the original posse had been eliminated. The sextet, riding two abreast, were holding their own with Wade. He recognized the broadshouldered Mahaffey, that implacable ranger captain who could ride and fight with the most noted in that intrepid service. Mahaffey would ride him down if that were possible, and failing that, Wade knew they would resort to rifles to stop him alive or dead.

Wade forced himself to desperate calculation of chances. He must not make a mistake. The rangers, long used to the pursuit of criminals, seldom blundered. Wade’s horse had exceptional speed and strength. The rangers used wiry little Mexican mustangs that could run all day without giving out. But in a short race of from five to ten miles they had no chance with Wade’s big black. Wade knew that they would soon ascertain that. Probably old horsemen among them could see that the black had not yes extended himself.

Leaning back, Wade untied his slicker which contained a blanket rolled around a pack of provisions and some bags of Bell’s gold It weighed fifty pounds or more.