But Sinclair, deep in the darkness of the tree shadows behind the jail, was already out of sight.  He caught a glimpse of Arizona sprinting ahead of him for dear life.  They reached the cottonwoods together and were greeted by a low shout from the girl; she was running out from the shelter, dragging the horses after her.

Arizona went into his saddle with a single leap.  Sinclair paused to take the jump, with his hand on the pommel, and as he lifted himself up with a jump, a gun blazed in point-blank range from the nearest shrubbery.

There was a yell from Arizona, not of pain, but of rage.  They saw his gun glistening in his hand, and, swerving his horse to disturb the aim of the marksman, his weapon’s first report blended with the second shot from the bushes, a tongue of darting flame.  Straight at the flash of a target Arizona had fired, and there was an answering yell.  Out of the dark of the shrubbery a great form leaped, with a grotesque shadow beneath it on the moon-whitened ground.

“Cartwright!” cried Sinclair, as the big man collapsed and became a shapeless, inanimate black heap.

Straight ahead Arizona was already spurring, and Sinclair waved once to the white face of Jig, then shot after his companion, while the trees and shrubbery to their left emitted a sudden swarm of men and barking guns.

But to strike a rapidly moving object with a revolver is never easy, and to strike by the moonlight is difficult indeed.  A dangerous flight of slugs bored the air around the fugitives for the first hundred yards of their flight, but after that the firing ceased, as the men of Sour Creek ran for their horses.

Straight on into the night rode the pair.

* * * * *

One year had made Arizona a little plumper, and one year had drawn Riley Sinclair more lean and somber, when they rode out on the shoulder of a flat-topped mountain and looked down into the hollow, where the late afternoon sun was already sending broad shadows out from every rise of ground.  Sour Creek was a blur and a twinkle of glass in the distance.

“Come to think of it,” said Arizona, “it’s just one year today.  Riley, was it that that brung you back here, and me, unknowing?”

The tall man made no answer, but shaded his eyes to peer down into the valley, and Arizona made no attempt to pursue the conversation.  He was long since accustomed to the silences of his traveling mate.  Seeing that Sinclair showed no disposition either to speak or move, he left the big cowpuncher to himself and started off through the trees in search of game.  The sign of a deer caught his eye and hurried him on into a futile chase, from which he returned in the early dark of the evening.  He was guided by the fire which Sinclair had kindled on the shoulder, but to his surprise, as he drew nearer, the fire dwindled, very much as if Riley had entirely forgotten to replenish it with dry wood.