worked in such a pitch of haste, accurate in every movement, deft with long practice in trussing up wilder creatures than these. With the last knot drawn on Noah's bonds, Simpson ran to the door in search of the saddle he had heard the woman hanging there. Several hung under the shed beside the door. He grabbed the nearest, returned to the stable and saddled: the horse that had given Dan so much trouble to drive away from his native pastures.
Not knowing how many horses belonged to the Ellisons, how many to the neighbors, Simpson went down the line and cut every animal in the stable loose. There was a general bolt for the door, Simpson urging them along. When the last animal was out of the stable he followed to the corral, shut the stable door and threw down the corral bars.
There were between twenty-five and thirty horses in the corral, including those the woman had driven in a little while before. Simpson, mounted and ready to go, waited beside the bars as the horses rushed out led by the Block E mare whose rope he had used to tie her thieves.
At that moment, doubtless having heard the rush of freed horses and puzzled to know what the two men in the barn were about, a man came bolting out of the front door of the house, in shirt sleeves, bareheaded. He stopped short at sight of Simpson herding the horses out of the corral, momentarily paralyzed by astonishment at seeing a stranger where he had expected to see his friends. He let out a wild yell and jumped for the door.
As the man disappeared on the jump for his gun, Simp-
