above. The
second horseman appeared round a bend. Both men were mounted on the
lean, hard-muscled horses of prairie breeding. They were spare of
flesh and uncared for, but their muscles were hard and their legs
clean. Between them a bend in the trail still intervened, but with
each moment they were drawing nearer to each other.

Right under the tree upon which the crows were perched Pete drew rein
and sat listening to the shuffling gait of the oncoming horse. The
man's lean face was dark with a brooding hatred. His eyes were
fiercely alight with expectancy. A revolver lay across his thigh, the
butt of it firmly grasped in a hand clutching it with desperate
purpose.

The trail was the trail to the farm. Ike had gone to the farm. A
horseman was returning along that trail from the direction of the
farm. Such was the argument behind his aggressive action. It was a
simple argument which in his sober senses might have needed support to
urge him to the course he now contemplated. But he was not sober;
Beasley had seen to that. He was no more sober than was Ike.

Ike's horse was moving slowly--much slower than its usual walking gait
The man was craning forward. Who, he wondered, was riding toward the
farm, and for what purpose? His right hand was on the butt of his
revolver, but his weapon was still in its holster, for his action was
purely precautionary in a country where, when a man has enemies, or
has done those things which he knows his fellows resent, it is
advisable to look for no support outside his own ability to defend
himself.

He remembered the screams of Joan, and he knew how the hills echoed.
He wondered, and wondering he regretted something of what he had done.
But he regretted it only for possible consequences to himself. In
reality he reveled in the warm memory of the feel of the girl's soft
cheek.

His horse reached the bend. He could no longer hear the hoof-beats of
the other. He drew up with a sudden, nervous movement, and his gun
left its holster. But his nerves passed, and, with a foul oath, he
urged his horse forward. He rounded the bend and came face to face
with the figure of Blue Grass Pete.

"Wher' you bin?" demanded the latter in a manner that was a deliberate
insult.

Ike did the only thing his wit could prompt. He laughed. It was a
harsh, mirthless laugh, which was equally an insult.

"Quit it!" roared Pete in a blind fury. "Wher' you bin, I say?"

Ike abandoned his laugh, but his face