They'll come a-rushin', for they like the boss.
"There's forty men in that gang that's hidin' ahead of us, tryin' to wipe us out.

But if they was a hundred we could keep 'em from makin' any time, an' if you'll burn the breeze some, you can have Barthman an' the others at the trail near Kinney's canon before these guys get there!" "Hell's fire, Blackburn," protested Shorty; "ain't there somebody else can ride a damned horse?
I'm aimin' to salivate some of them skunks!" "Orders is orders, Shorty," growled Blackburn, coldly.

"You're goin', an' you're goin' right this minute--or I'm goin' to bust you in the eye!" "Well, if you put it that way," grimly grinned Shorty.
He crawled out of the depression, threw himself upon his horse and raced southeastward, yelling, and waving his hat defiantly at the outlaws, who were shooting at him.

But the speed of Shorty's horse was too great for accurate shooting; and Shorty kept going--waving his hat for a time, and then, when out of range, riding hard--seeming to glide like a shadow into the yawning gulf of distance.
The depression into which Blackburn and his men had crept was not more than three or four feet deep, with long, sloping sides which were covered with alkali and rotted rock.

Along the edges grew greasewood and mesquite bushes, which afforded concealment but not protection.