ld never do this so long as the "King" was
alive and at liberty.

Under the star-roof in the chill, breaking day Ned Bannister talked to
him long and gently. It was easy to bring the boy to tears, but it was
harder thing to stiffen a will that was of putty and to hearten a soul
in mortal fear. But he set himself with all the power in him to combat
the influence of his cousin over this boy; and before the camp stirred
to life again he knew that he had measurably succeeded.

They ate breakfast in the gray dawn under the stars, and after they had
finished their coffee and bacon horses were saddled and the trail
taken up again. It led in and out among the foot-hills slopping
upward gradually toward the first long blue line of the Shoshones that
stretched before them in the distance. Their nooning was at running
stream called Smith's Creek, and by nightfall the party was well up in
the higher foot hills.

In the course of the day and the second night both the sheepman and
his friend made attempt to establish a more cordial relationship with
Chalkeye, but so far as any apparent results went their efforts were
vain. He refused grimly to meet their overtures half way, even though it
was plain from his manner that a break between him and his chief could
not long be avoided.

All day by crooked trails they pushed forward, and as the party advanced
into the mountains the gloom of the mournful pines and frowning peaks
invaded its spirits. Suspicion and distrust went with it, camped at
night by the rushing mountain stream, lay down to sleep in the shadows
at every man's shoulder. For each man looked with an ominous eye on his
neighbor, watchful of every sudden move, of every careless word that
might convey a sudden meaning.

Along a narrow rock-rim trail far above a steep canon, whose walls shot
precipitously down, they were riding in single file, when the outlaw
chief pushed his horse forward between the road wall and his cousin's
bronco. The sheepman immediately fell back.

"I reckon this trail isn't wide enough for two--unless y'u take the
outside," he explained quietly.

The outlaw, who had been drinking steadily ever since leaving the Lazy
D, laughed his low, sinister cackle. "Afraid of me, are y'u? Afraid I'll
push y'u off?"

"Not when I'm inside and you don't have chance."

"'Twas a place about like this I drove for thousand of your sheep over
last week. With sheep worth what they are I'm afraid it must have
cost