sure in five minutes.  You ride the black; I’ll ride Majesty.  We’ll slip round through the brush, out of sight and sound, till we can break out into the open.  Then we’ll split.  You make straight for the ranch.  I’ll cut loose for the valley where Gene said positively the cowboys were with the cattle.  The vaqueros will take me for you.  They all know those striking white things you wear.  They’ll chase me.  They’ll never get anywhere near me.  And you’ll be on a fast horse.  He can take you home ahead of any vaqueros.  But you won’t be chased.  I’m staking all on that.  Trust me, Madeline.  If it were only my calculation, maybe I’d—­It’s because I remember Stewart.  That cowboy knows things.  Come, this heah’s the safest and smartest way to fool Don Carlos.”  Madeline felt herself more forced than persuaded into acquiescence.  She mounted the black and took up the bridle.  In another moment she was guiding her horse off the trail in the tracks of Majesty.  Florence led off at right angles, threading a slow passage through the mesquite.  She favored sandy patches and open aisles between the trees, and was careful not to break a branch.  Often she stopped to listen.  This detour of perhaps half a mile brought Madeline to where she could see open ground, the ranch-house only a few miles off, and the cattle dotting the valley.  She had not lost her courage, but it was certain that these familiar sights somewhat lightened the pressure upon her breast.  Excitement gripped her.  The shrill whistle of a horse made both the black and Majesty jump.  Florence quickened the gait down the slope.  Soon Madeline saw the edge of the brush, the gray-bleached grass and level ground.

Florence waited at the opening between the low trees.  She gave Madeline a quick, bright glance.

“All over but the ride!  That’ll sure be easy.  Bolt now and keep your nerve!”

When Florence wheeled the fiery roan and screamed in his ear Madeline seemed suddenly to grow lax and helpless.  The big horse leaped into thundering action.  This was memorable of Bonita of the flying hair and the wild night ride.  Florence’s hair streamed on the wind and shone gold in the sunlight.  Yet Madeline saw her with the same thrill with which she had seen the wild-riding Bonita.  Then hoarse shouts unclamped Madeline’s power of movement, and she spurred the black into the open.

He wanted to run and he was swift.  Madeline loosened the reins—­ laid them loose upon his neck.  His action was strange to her.  He was hard to ride.  But he was fast, and she cared for nothing else.  Madeline knew horses well enough to realize that the black had found he was free and carrying a light weight.  A few times she took up the bridle and pulled to right or left, trying to guide him.  He kept a straight course, however, and crashed through small patches of mesquite and jumped the cracks and washes.  Uneven ground offered no perceptible obstacle to his running.  To Madeline there was now a thrilling difference in the lash of wind and the flash of the gray ground underneath.  She was running away from something; what that was she did not know.  But she remembered Florence, and she wanted to look back, yet hated to do so for fear of the nameless danger Florence had mentioned.