navailingly
to take the wave out of it with water, and leaving it more crinkly over
his temples than it had been in the first place--and retied the
four-in-hand under the soft collar of his shirt.

"I wish you'd talk, Buck," he said, turning toward the other. He
looked very boyish and almost handsome, except for the expression of
his eyes, which gave Buck the shivers, and the set of his lips, which
was cruel. "I've read how the Chinks hand out what they call the
death-of-a-thousand-cuts; I was thinking I'd like to try it out on you.
But--oh, well, this is Friday. It may as well go as a hanging." He
made a poor job of his calm irony, but Buck was not in the mental
condition to be critical.

The main facts were sufficiently ominous to offset Ward's attempt at
facetiousness. Indeed, the very weakness of the attempt was in itself
ominous. Ward might try to be coldly malevolent, but the light that
burned in his eyes, and the rage that tightened his lips, gave the lie
to his forced composure.

He went out and led up the horses to the door. He came back and
started to untie Buck Olney's feet, then bethought him of the statement
he had promised to write. He got a magazine and tore out the
frontispiece--which, oddly enough, was a somber picture of Death
hovering with outstretched wings over a battlefield--and wrote several
lines in pencil on the back of it, where the paper was smooth and white.

"How's that?" he asked, holding up the paper so that Buck could read
what he had written. "I ain't in the mood to sit down and write a
whole book, so I had to boil down your pedigree. But that will do the
business all right, don't you think?"

Buck read with staring eyes, looked into Ward's face, and opened his
lips for protest or pleading. Then he followed Ward's glance to the
knife on the table and shut his mouth with a snap. Ward laughed
grimly, picked up the knife, and ran his thumb lightly over the edge to
test its keenness. "Put a fresh edge on it for me, huh?" he commented.
"Well, we may as well get started, I reckon. I'm getting almighty sick
of seeing you around."

He loosened the rope that hound Buck to the chair and stood scowling
down at him, drawing in a corner of his lip and biting it thoughtfully.
Then he took his revolver and held it in his left hand, while with his
right he undid the rope which hound Buck's hands.

"Stick your hands out in front of you," he commanded. "You'll have to
ride a ways;