If horsemen were thundering toward the spot, the was .  
But, though seized with despair, he did not yield. On the contrary, he was nerved to such desperation that he put a tremendous effort, which quickly increased the space between him and the pursuer.
 
But instead of heading away from the coming animals, he turned directly toward them, at the same astonishing . Why he did this, he himself did not understand. It may have been that, impressed with the utter uselessness of trying to escape by running, he had a blind hope of unhorsing one of his enemies and his steed from him.
 
He had taken only a few leaps, however, when he discovered that the beasts running forward, as if to meet him, were cattle.
 
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Fully fifty animals, belonging to the several miles distant, had started out on a little stampede of their own, and fate brought them and him in collision.
 
It mattered not, for nothing could make the situation worse. The next instant Avon was among them, in risk of being to death. The beasts were terrified by the of the footman, and in the wildest confusion.
 
While he was in such deadly , the animals served as a shield against the assault of the Comanche close behind him. Anxious as he was to secure the fugitive, he was not prepared to “cut him out” from a drove of stampeded cattle.
 
He turned to avoid the terrific rush, and fitful glimpses of the leaping form among the beasts, raised his gun and let fly.
 
His shot struck, but, instead of bringing down the youth, it tumbled one of the bullocks headlong on the plain. Avon would have turned at once to give attention to his enemy, had he not been fully occupied in saving himself from the animals themselves.
 
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Fortunately he had not far among the drove, and, by a continuance of his inimitable , he from among them, helped thereto by the efforts of the cattle themselves to flee from the terrifying object.
 
It was at this , when the youth was striving to get sight of his enemy, who, he believed, was trying equally hard to secure another shot at him, that he saw the very thing he had been from the first.
 
It was a single horseman, who almost rode him down ere he could check his steed. Avon was so flurried from his fierce , that, before he could bring his rifle to his shoulder and discharge it, the other anticipated him.
 
But the man did not fire at him. He aimed at the Comanche, not a dozen yards distant, and hit him fairly and squarely.
 
“Helloa, Baby, what the is up?”
 
“Thank Heaven, Ballyhoo, it’s you!” exclaimed the panting youth, ready to drop from .
 
“Ballyhoo,” was the nickname of Oscar Gleeson, one of the cowboys in charge of the 114two thousand cattle that were to start on the morrow over the Great Cattle Trail.
 
“Baby” was the name by which Avon Burnet was known among the rest, because of his youth.
 
Leaning over his horse, the tall Texan reached down and grasped the hand of his young friend.
 
“It sort of looks, Baby, as though I had arrived in time to do you a little turn.”
 
“There’s no doubt of that, for I couldn’t have run much further.”
 
“But why did you run at all? I observed but one Injin, and he’s of no further account now.”
 
“When I started there were four after me, but I threw all out of sight except one. I was on the point of turning to fight him, when I heard the cattle, and thought they were other Comanches coming to the help of this fellow.”
 
“But things seem to be in a queer shape at the house; tell me the trouble.”
 
“Why, how did you know a............