he bridle,
and the horse, answering a closer pressure of heel and knee, suddenly
lifted its head and stiffened its lax muscles into alertness.

"I'd hate to make you lose your job, Jim," said Mead, smiling, "but
you can't expect a fellow to let himself be arrested for nothing, just
so you can keep a soft snap as deputy sheriff. You get some evidence
against me, and then I'll go with you as quiet as any maverick you
ever saw."

As Mead spoke he was listening intently. He heard Antone's horse stop
a little way behind him, and, as the last word left his lips, the hiss
of the rope through the air. With a dig of the spurs and a sharp jerk
of the bridle the horse reared. The noose fell over Mead's head, but
his revolver was already in his hand, and with a turn as quick as a
lightning flash he swung the horse round on its hind legs in a quarter
circle and before the astounded Mexican could tighten the loop there
were two flashing reports and a bullet had crashed through each wrist.
Antone's arms dropped on his saddle, and through the shrill din of the
mingled Spanish and English curses he shrieked at Mead came the sharp
cracking of three revolvers. Emerson Mead felt one bullet whistle
through his sleeve and one through the rim of his sombrero, as, with
the rope still on his shoulders, he whirled his horse round again
with his smoking revolver leveled at Halliday.

"Whoo-oo-oo-ee-ee!" Ellhorn's long-drawn-out yell came floating down
from the top of the hill and close on its heels the report of a
pistol.

"That was a very pretty trick, Emerson," said the foreman, in a voice
which tried hard to sound unconcerned, "even if it was my man you
played it on."

"It will be played on you if you make another break," Mead replied in
an even tone, with his revolver still leveled at Halliday. He turned
his horse slightly so that a sidewise glance up the hill showed Tom
Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, guns in hand, both astride one horse, coming
toward them on a gallop. Tuttle's deep-lunged voice bellowed down the
slope:

"We're a-comin', Emerson! Hold 'em off! We're a-comin'!" and another
pistol ball sung through the rain and dropped beside Halliday's horse.
Mead flung the rope from his shoulders and grinned at Halliday and his
party.

"Well, what are you going to do now? Do you want to fight?"

Halliday put his gun in its holster: "I don't want any pitched battle
over this business. We'll call the game off for this morning."

"It's a