he saw confronting him, not a hundred yards away, a motionless
horseman.

CHAPTER VI

HEELS FOR IT

With a sudden, low command to Sassoon to check his horse, and without
a movement that could be detected in the dawn ten yards away, de Spain
with the thumb and finger of his right hand lifted his revolver from
its scabbard, shifted his lines from his left hand to his right, rode
closer to Sassoon and pressed the muzzle of the gun to his prisoner's
side. "You've got one chance yet, Shike, to ride out of here alive,"
he said composedly. "You know I am a rustler--cousin of John
Rebstock's. My name is 'Frenchy'; I belong in Williams Cache. I rode
in last night from Thief River, and you are riding out with me to
start me on to the Sleepy Cat trail. If you can remember that
much----"

While he spoke to Sassoon his eyes were fixed on the rider halted in
their path. De Spain stopped half-way through his sentence. The figure
revealed in the half-light puzzled him at first. Then it confused and
startled him. He saw it was not a man at all, but a woman--and a
woman than whom he would rather have seen six men. It was Nan
Morgan.

With her head never more decisively set under her mannish hat, her
waist never more attractively outlined in slenderness, she silently
faced de Spain in the morning gray. His face reflected his chagrined
perplexity. The whole fabric of his slender plot seemed to go to
pieces at the sight of her. At the mere appearance of his frail and
motionless foe a feeling of awkward helplessness dissolved his easy
confidence. He now reversed every move he had so carefully made with
his hands and, resentfully eying Nan, rode in somewhat behind Sassoon,
doing nothing further than to pull his kerchief up about his neck, and
wondering what would be likely to happen before the next three minutes
were up. Beyond that flash the future held no interest for him--his
wits had temporarily failed.

Of one thing he felt assured, that it was in no wise up to him to
speak or do first. He could already see Nan's eyes. They were bent
keenly first on him, then on his companion, and again on him. De Spain
kept his face down as much as he dared, and his hat had been pulled
well over it from the beginning. She waited so long before accosting
the two men that de Spain, who was ready to hope any improbable thing,
began to hope she might let them pass unchallenged. He had resolved,
if she did not speak to push past without even