him to
earth.

Bang! The noise of the discharging shotgun broke on the night's
stillness. Bang! crashed the other barrel.

The muzzle had been pointed skyward, however, and both charges of
buckshot had been driven off into space, to fall to the earth many yards
beyond.

"Reade! Hazelton!" choked Rafe Bodson, leaping forward. "You fellows
certainly have grit! Here, Hazelton, let me help you with that loco
(crazy) hotel man."

Jeff, in the meantime had rolled Jim Duff over on his back, then sat on
him. When Duff returned to consciousness he found himself gazing into
the muzzle of an automatic revolver.

Harry and Bodson made a quick, sure job of tying Ashby's wrists with a
cord that Rafe supplied.

"You think you've stopped me, don't you?" snarled the hotel man, wild
with rage.

"We stopped you in time to keep you from shooting down two men who were
at your mercy," retorted Harry sternly.

"What's that?" gasped Rafe.

"They were going to shoot you with your hands in the air," Tom declared.

"That's another of your lies, Reade," snarled the gambler.

"It's you who are doing the lying, Duff," rejoined Tom stiffly. "I came
to my senses just in time to hear you tell Ashby to kill one man while
you killed the other."

"So that was the game, was it?" said Jeff.

"No, it wasn't," snapped Jim Duff.

"Shut up," ordered Jeff unbelievingly. "Duff, we've seen enough of you
to-night to know that an Apache has ten times as much honor as you
have, and a rattlesnake has twenty times as much decency. You lying,
miserable, white-livered, smooth-tongued, poisonous reptile in human
form. If you open your mouth to say another word you'll have me so wild
that I'll pull the trigger of this automatic before I intend to do so."

"Thank goodness you had become conscious too, Harry!" breathed Tom
fervently. "I don't believe I could have knocked both men over in time
to prevent a killing. I managed to get my hands free just in time to get
on the job."

"I had known for some moments what was going on around me," Hazelton
replied. "But I was lying with my eyes closed, and keeping mighty quiet.
I was trying to hear your breathing, so I could decide whether you had
come to your senses, when all of a sudden you sat up and freed my hands.
Ugh!" he added with disgust, as he reached up and slipped the remnant of
rawhide noose from around his neck.

"What'll we do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff
dryly. "Tie