For an instant only Calumet halted Blackleg, and then he spurred him
down the river trail. One mile, two, three, he rode at a breakneck
pace, and then suddenly he was out of the timber and facing a plain
that stretched into an interminable distance. The trail lay straight
and clear; there was no sign of a horse and rider on it. Taggart had
not come in this direction, though in this direction lay the Arrow.
He wheeled Blackleg and, with glowering eyes and straightened lips,
rode him back the way he had come, halting often and peering into
shadows. By the time he arrived at the spot where he had first seen
the horse and rider he had become convinced that Taggart had secreted
himself until he had passed him and had then ridden over the back
trail, later to return to the Arrow by a circuitous route.
Calumet determined to cut across the country and intercept him, and he
drove the spurs into Blackleg and raced him through the wood. His
trail took him into a section which led to the slope which the horses
drawing the wagon had taken on the night of the ambush. He was tearing
through this when he broke through the edge of a clearing about a
quarter of a mile from the ranchhouse. At about the center of the
clearing Blackleg came to a jarring, dizzying stop, rearing high on his
hind legs.
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