When they came out in view of the rolling plain Barry stopped again and
glanced to the west and the north, while Black Bart ran to the top of the
nearest hill and looked back, an ever vigilant outpost. To the north lay
the fordable streams near Caswell City, and that way was perfect safety, it
seemed. Not perfect, perhaps, for Barry knew nothing of the telephones by
which the little bald headed clerk at the sheriff's office was rousing the
countryside, but if he struck toward Caswell City from the Morgans, there
was not a chance in ten that scouts would catch him at the river which was
fordable for mile after mile.
That way, then, lay the easiest escape, but it meant a long detour out of
the shortest course, which struck almost exactly west, skirting dangerously
close to Rickett. But, as Billy had presupposed, it was the very danger
which lured the fugitive. Behind him, entangled in the gullies of the
bad-lands, were the fifteen best men of the mountain-desert. In front of
him lay nothing except the mind of Billy the clerk. But how could he know
that?
Once again he swayed a little forward and this time the stallion swung at
once into his ranging gallop, then verged into a half-racing gait, for
Barry wished to get out of sight among the rolling ground before the posse
came out from the Morgan Hills on his back trail.
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