Beryl shrank backward with a little cry--and I knew she had not meant to do me a hurt.
"Come on, you fool!" cried Frosty, and struck his horse savagely.

I jabbed in my spurs, and Shylock leaped his length and fled down that familiar trail to the "gantlet," as I had always called it mentally after that second passing.

But King, behind us, fired three shots quickly, one after another--and, as the bullets sang past, I knew them for a signal.
A dozen men, as it seemed to me, swarmed out from divers places to dispute our passing, and shots were being fired in the dark, their starting-point betrayed by vicious little spurts of flame.

Shylock winced cruelly, as we whipped around the first shed, and I called out sharply to Frosty, still a length ahead.

He turned just as my horse went down to his knees.
I jerked my feet from the stirrups and landed free and upright, which was a blessing.