Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled Buddy off the horse.
"So besides bein' a Lutts--yore a hoss thief t' boot, air ye?--well--by-damn!"
Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him, convulsed and working with passion. McGill jerked the boy around and called out loudly toward the store:
After calling several times, two men appeared in response, at the side gate, back of the store.
"Cum on over, Stump--I keetched this fuzzy little Lutts runt a stealin' my hoss--hain't thet th' all-firedest beatenst nerve ye ever heerd tell on--cum git thes hoss while I ring thes little cuss's neck."
Sap's left hand clutching Buddy's shoulder, also retained the pistol which encumbered his grip, and as the two men advanced, Buddy threw all his strength into a sudden twist, breaking loose, and fled down the road toward the river with all the might that was in his skinny legs.
In his flight he stooped, and straightened, and ran azigzag; performing every trick known to him calculated to dodge a bullet. Buddy did artfully dodge two balls which Sap sent after him, but the third bullet tripped between his arm and his body, burning a furrow on both sides, and the fourth pinched a piece out of his shoulder. But these sensations only lent wings to Buddy's feet, and handicapped as he was, with his rifle double hitched over his shoulders, he fairly sailed.
When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped, but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on, stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses, leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house.