led toward the precipice.

The boy, half lifted, half led, half dragged, found himself powerless in
the hands of the Parson, and was soon on the brink of the canon.

"Now sir, damn you, what have you been doing at the Widow's?"

The boy stood trembling before him.

"Boy! do you hear; I intend to pitch you over the rocks, and break your
infernal slim little neck!"

The boy still was silent. He could not even lift his eyes. He was
preparing to die.

"Now sir, tell me the truth; what have you been doing at the Widow's?"

The boy trembled like a bird in the clutches of a hawk, but could not
speak.

The Parson looked up the trail and down the trail; all was silent save
the roar of the water in the canon below, the interrupted howl of the
wolf on the hill, and the mournful and monotonous call of the
night-bird. He looked up through the canon at the sky. It was a dark and
cloudy night. Now and then a star stood out in the fresco of clouds, but
it was a gloomy night.

"Now you look here," and he shook the boy by the shoulder and laughed
like a demon. "Don't you know that if you go on this way you will fall
over this bluff some night and break your cussed little neck? Don't you
know that? You boy! You brat!"

Still the boy could not speak or even lift his face.

"I'll save you the trouble," said the Parson between his teeth. "'The
boys' will rather like it. They will say they knew you would break your
neck some night."

The boy did not speak, but beneath the iron clutch of the Parson settled
to his knees.

"Now sir, you have just one minute. Do you see that star? When that
flying cloud covers that star, then you die! and may God help you--and
me."

The man's voice was husky with rage and from the contemplation of his
awful crime.

"Speak boy! speak! speak but once before I murder you!"

The boy's eyes were lifted to the star, to the flying cloud that was
about to cover it, and then to the eyes of the Parson, and he,
trembling, half whispering, said, "Please, Parson, may I pray?"

The iron hand relaxed; the man let go his hold, and staggering back to
the trail went down the hill in silence, and into the dark, where he
belonged.

* * * * *

The two men who had entered the saloon at the Forks so mysteriously and
had so terrified the bar-keeper, had disappeared. Yet Sandy, every man,
knew that these men or their agents were all the time in their midst. No
one knew the face of