wait for morning."

Watkins sent out a dozen of the nearest men to circle the water troughs
in order to cut off further retreat, if that were projected. Then he
went about methodically selecting others to whom he assigned various
stations.

"Now you get a-plenty of catteridges," he told them, "and you lay low
and shoot 'em off. And if any of you gets shot I'll sure skin him
alive!"

In the meantime, the locomotive lantern had been lit so that the
interior of the courtyard was thrown into brilliant light. Needless to
say the opening blown in the walls did _not_ face toward the water
corrals. Of Artie Brower and the Morgan stallion we found hardly a
trace. They had been literally blown to pieces. Not one of us who had
known him but felt in his heart a kindly sorrow for the strange little
man. The sentry who had fired at him and who had thus, indirectly,
precipitated the catastrophe, was especially downcast.

"I told him to stop, and he kep' right on a-going, so I shot at him," he
explained. "What else was I to do? How was I to know he didn't belong to
that gang? He acted like it."

But when you think of it how could it have come out better? Poor, weak,
vice-ridden, likeable little beggar, what could the future have held for
him? And it is probable that his death saved many lives.

The prisoners were brought in--some forty of them, for Old Man Hooper
maintained only the home ranch and all his cow hands as well as his
personal bravos were gathered here. Buck Johnson separated apart seven
of them, and ordered the others into the stables under guard.

"Bad _hombres_, all of them," he observed to Jed Parker. "We'll just
nat'rally ship them across the line very _pronto_. But these seven are
worse than bad _hombres_. We'll have to see about them."

But neither Andreas, Ramon, nor Old Man Hooper himself were among those
present.

"Maybe they slipped out through our guards; but I doubt it," said Buck.
"I believe we've identified that peevish lot by the water troughs."

The firing went on quite briskly for a while; then slackened, and
finally died to an occasioned burst, mainly from our own side. Under our
leader's direction the men fed their horses and made themselves
comfortable. I was summoned to the living quarters to explain on the
spot the events that had gone before. Here we examined more carefully
and in detail the various documents--the extraordinary directions to
Ramon; the list of prospective victims to be o