but go on and leave me. Do you understand?" he repeated almost
savagely.

"Yes," said the boy tremulously.

"All right," said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his one
arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. "Hold tight when we come
to the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for old luck's sake,
to the Mission."

They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they wheeled
rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest swung
as quickly out of another road to the right immediately behind them.
Jack's challenge to "Halt!" was only answered by Steptoe's horse
springing forward under the sharp lash of the riata.

"Hold up!" said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle which
Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. "He's carrying some one,--a wounded
comrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go for the horse;
well forward, in the neck or shoulder."

Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his rifle. As
it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle
ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head went
down with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault on
the road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away.

Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figure
never moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The reports
seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain even
before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air.

The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to the
prostrate figure that had never moved.

"By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the
shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and dead as
his pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began
hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand.

"What are you doing?" demanded Demorest in creeping horror.

"Look!" said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first two
fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the padded
glove.

"Good God! Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling.

"No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have long
suspected,--it's Steptoe's son!"

"His son?" repeated Demorest.

"Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies with
a long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I were yo