other; "yore bad luck was just breakin'.
But, look here. Suppose you fellers quit this business now. I don't relish
yore all bein' slaughtered this-a-way, and it's shore a comin' to yuh if
yuh don't quit."

"Yuh talk like a Sunday-school class had stampeded on yuh, Billy. I'm
surprised!" gibed Welsh. "Mebbe yuh don't like yore flowery bed of ease
out there, what?"

"All horsin' aside, I mean it," insisted Speaker. "Yuh better quit now
before they come ag'in."

"Yeah, an' get strung up to the nearest tree fer my pains, eh? Oh, no; I
like this better; but, of course, if any o' the boys--"

"Naw! What the deuce are yuh talkin' about?" demanded an aggrieved voice,
instantly joined by the other three.

"You're wrong, Jimmie; of course, I don't mean that. If yuh'll quit I'll
see that yuh don't get strung up."

"You're shore some friendly, Billy," said Jimmie, shaking his head; "but I
couldn't never look my boss in the face if I even thought o' quittin'.
That ain't what he pays me fer."

"I'll give yuh a job as foreman on the Circle Arrow. I see one of you
hellions got my foreman; he's layin' out there kickin' still. What d'ye
say?"

"I'm plumb regretful, Billy," returned Welsh, without hesitation; "but I
can't do it. Mebbe one o' the boys--"

"Naw!" said the boys in unified contempt.

"Well, yuh pig-headed sons o' misery, go on an' die, then!" cried
Speaker, quite out of patience.

"Jest a minute an' we'll oblige yuh, Billy," rejoined Welsh, as the
dreaded drumming of hoofs foretold the next charge.

There was a tense moment of waiting, and then the fusillade began again,
pitifully weak from the sheepmen. When the horsemen had whirled out of
sight Lem and Newt lay groaning on the ground, while Tip O'Niell lay
strangling in a torrent of blood that rushed from what had once been his
face.

Welsh took one look at the tortured man, and with a crack over the head
from the butt of his pistol, rendered him unconscious and stilled his
blood-curdling agonies. Then he walked over to the cowmen.

"Anybody got the makin's?" he asked. "One o' them punchers spilt mine out
o' my pocket last time."

Nonchalantly he showed the clean rent on the left side of his flannel
shirt, just over his heart, where his pocket had been.

Somebody handed up the paper and tobacco, and he rolled a cigarette,
tossing the materials back to Chuck Durstine, who sauntered up, examining
his gun curiously.

Durstine, from his appearance, had