still keeping a vigilant eye on the prisoners.
"We've got to play our hand different. Shorty is game. He can't be
bluffed. But Miller can. I found out years ago he squeals at physical
pain. We'll start for home. After a while we'll give Shorty a chance to
make a getaway. Then we'll turn the screws on Miller."

"All right, Dave. You run it. I'll back yore play," his friend said.

They disarmed Miller, made him saddle two of the horses in the corral,
and took the back trail across the valley to the divide. It was here they
gave Shorty his chance of escape. Miller was leading the way up the
trail, with Crawford, Thomas, Shorty, and Dave in the order named. Dave
rode forward to confer with the owner of the D Bar Lazy R. For three
seconds his back was turned to the squat cowpuncher.

Shorty whirled his horse and flung it wildly down the precipitous slope.
Sanders galloped after him, fired his revolver three times, and after a
short chase gave up the pursuit. He rode back to the party on the summit.

Crawford glanced around at the heavy chaparral. "How about off here a
bit, Dave?"

The younger man agreed. He turned to Miller. "We're going to hang you,"
he said quietly.

The pasty color of the fat man ebbed till his face seemed entirely
bloodless. "My God! You wouldn't do that!" he moaned.

He clung feebly to the horn of his saddle as Sanders led the horse into
the brush. He whimpered, snuffling an appeal for mercy repeated over and
over. The party had not left the road a hundred yards behind when a man
jogged past on his way into the valley. He did not see them, nor did they
see him.

Underneath a rather scrubby cedar Dave drew up. He glanced it over
critically. "Think it'll do?" he asked Crawford in a voice the prisoner
could just hear.

"Yep. That big limb'll hold him," the old cattleman answered in the same
low voice. "Better let him stay right on the horse, then we'll lead it
out from under him."

Miller pleaded for his life abjectly. His blood had turned to water.
"Honest, I didn't shoot Harrigan. Why, I'm that tender-hearted I wouldn't
hurt a kitten. I--I--Oh, don't do that, for God's sake."

Thomas was almost as white as the outlaw. "You don't aim to--you
wouldn't--"

Crawford's face was as cold and as hard as steel. "Why not? He's a
murderer. He tried to gun Dave here when the boy didn't have a
six-shooter. We'll jes' get rid of him now." He threw a rope over the
convict's head and adjusted it to the f