Then suddenly he, too, was riding, but at a pace which took no heed of a horse’s endurance, riding a gallant brute that stretched out its neck, nostrils flaring, hammering hoofs beating out the very staccato of urgent speed upon the flying sands.  Already his revolver was tight clinched in a lifted hand.  Already he had swerved a little from the distant lights of San Juan.  He was taking the shortest line which led to Denbar’s crossroads.

“Galloway’s got Fluff,” he said over and over, choking on the words.

An hour later Norton heard the first spitting of rifles.  Another fifteen minutes of shod hoofs pounding through the broken hills and he saw the first spurts of flame cutting through the shadows where the trees clung to the arroyo.  As he drew in his horse the men behind him closed up about him.  He threw out his arm, pointing.

“Brocky’s boys must be right down there,” he said sharply.  “The Kid and del Rio will be yonder; those are their horses.  Young Page says there are about fifty of them.”

A fusillade of rifle-shots interrupted him.  Along a fifty or sixty yard front the Kid’s and del Rio’s men had crept in closer to Brocky’s arroyo, worming their way upon their stomachs, and now fired together.  There came a rattling reply from the creek, the shouting of cowboys.

“We’ll take those fellows first,” ordered Norton quickly.  “They will see us when we climb that little rise.  Spread out; go easy until we get to the top.  Then, boys, let’s see who can give them hell first and fastest.”

They looked to their rifles for the last time and rode slowly up the short slope of the low-lying ridge.  Then, as the first man topped it, there came a shout from the shadows in front, another shout, and the whizzing of rifle-balls.  Norton used his spurs then; his big roan leaped forward and was racing down the farther slope; his men in a long line rode with him.  And as he rode he lifted his own gun and poured his lead into the thickest of the shadows.

A wild shout of cheering broke from the arroyo; rifle-barrels grew hot in hot hands.  On through the bright moonlight came the sheriff’s posse, some of them firing as they rode, others saving their lead.  To be seen from afar now, they drew many a shot toward themselves.  And yet the target of a man riding swiftly over uneven ground and in the moonlight is not to be found overreadily by questing lead.  When Norton called to his men to stop and dismount, taking advantage of a row of scattered boulders, not a saddle was empty.

[Illustration:  On through the bright moonlight came the sheriff’s posse.]

Every man as he dismounted threw his horsed reins to the ground; the animals might bolt or they might not, some of them might not stop for many a mile, others would be found a hundred yards away.  But they must all think less of that now than of what lay in front of them.

“That you, Norton?” came a cheery voice booming suddenly through the silence which had shut down as the newcomers disappeared among the boulders.