h of these were white.

The sawed-off gun of Thursday covered the second rider carefully. Before
the sound of the shot boomed down the gorge the Apache was lifted from
the bare back of the pony. The heavy charge of buckshot had riddled him
through and through.

Instantly the slim, young brave in the lead dug his heels into the flank
of his pony, swung low to the far side so that only a leg was visible,
and flew arrow-straight up the canon for safety. Thursday let him go.

Twice his rifle rang out. At that distance it was impossible for a good
shot to miss. One bullet passed through the head of the third Mescalero.
The other brought down the pony upon which the whites were riding.

The fall of the horse flung the girl free, but the foot of her captor was
caught between the saddle and the ground. Thursday drew a bead on him
while he lay there helpless, but some impulse of mercy held his hand. The
man was that creature accursed in the border land, a renegade who has
turned his face against his own race and must to prove his sincerity to
the tribe out-Apache an Apache at cruelty. Still, he was white after
all--and Jim Thursday was only eighteen.

Rifle in hand the boy clambered down the jagged rock wall to the dry
river-bed below. The foot of his high-heeled boot was soggy with blood,
but for the present he had to ignore the pain messages that throbbed to
his brain. The business on hand would not wait.

While Thursday was still slipping down from one outcropping ledge of rock
to another, a plunge of the wounded horse freed the renegade. The man
scrambled to his feet and ran shakily for the shelter of a boulder. In
his hurry to reach cover he did not stop to get the rifle that had been
flung a few yards from him when he fell.

The boy caught one glimpse of that evil, fear-racked face. The blood
flushed his veins with a surge of triumph. He was filled with the savage,
primitive exultation of the head-hunter. For four years he had slept on
the trail of this man and had at last found him. The scout had fought the
Apaches impersonally, without rancor, because a call had come to him that
he could not ignore. But now the lust of blood was on him. He had become
that cold, implacable thing known throughout the West as a "killer."

The merciless caution that dictates the methods of a killer animated his
movements now. Across the gulch, nearly one hundred and fifty yards from
him, the renegade lay crouched. A hunched shoulder w