Crossword-Solution: HOOFBEATS 9 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 17

Before either Hiram or the girl broke the silence--before that silence could become awkward, indeed--there started into hearing the ring of rapid hoofbeats again.

Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the lively hoofbeats of Fritz’s team of little black mules, and very soon afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate.

Now and then one of the horses cleared its nostrils with a snort, but on the whole they went in perfect silence with the short grass silencing the hoofbeats, and never a word passed from man to man.

They crossed the creek at a place where the stones came almost to the surface, since nothing is more detrimental to the speed of a horse than a plunge in cold water, and with the hoofbeats of the posse growing up behind they cantered off again a little cast of north, straight for Caswell City.

There was no pause of minutes, hardly a pause of seconds, when the rush of hoofbeats began again and poured out from the town, fifteen desperate riders on fifteen fresh mounts.