h man who rode with his elbows out, like an
Indian. His face was scarred by old knife-wounds, making it hard for
him to shave, in consequence of which he allowed his red beard to grow
to inch-length, where he kept it in subjugation with shears. The
gutters of his scars were seen through it, and the ends of them ran
up, on both cheeks, to his eyes. A knife had gone across one of these,
missing the bright little pupil in its bony cave, but slashing the
eyebrow and leaving him leering on that side.

The men who came behind him were cowboys from the Texas Panhandle,
lean and tough as the dried beef of their native plains. It was the
most formidable force, not in numbers, but in proficiency, that ever
had proceeded against Macdonald, and the most determined.

Chadron himself had bent to the small office of spy to learn
Macdonald's intention in reference to his prisoner. From a sheltered
thicket in the foothills the cattleman had watched the homesteader
through his field glasses, making certain that he was returning Thorn
to the scene of his latest crimes, instead of risking the long road to
the Meander jail.

Chadron knew that Macdonald would defend the prisoner's life with his
own, even against his neighbors. Macdonald would be as eager to have
Thorn tell the story of his transactions with the Drovers' Association
as they would be to have it shut off. The realization of this threw
Chadron into a state which he described to himself as the "fantods."
Another, with a more extensive and less picturesque vocabulary, would
have said that the president of the Drovers' Association was in a
condition of panic.

So he had despatched his men on this silencing errand, and now, as the
sun was dipping over the hills, all red with the presage of a frosty
night, Chance Dalton and his men came riding in sight of Macdonald's
little nest of buildings fronting the road by the river.

Macdonald had secured his prisoner with ropes, for there was no
compartment in his little house, built of boards from the mountain
sawmill, strong enough to confine a man, much less a slippery one like
Mark Thorn. The slayer had lapsed into his native taciturnity shortly
after beginning the trip from the reservation to Macdonald's
homestead, and now he lay on the floor trussed up like a hog for
market, looking blackly at Macdonald. Macdonald was considering the
night ride to Meander with his prisoner that he had planned, with the
intention of proceeding from