!" Then, pointing to the fallen man,
he said to the nearest bystanders: "Some of you drag that out for the
coyotes."

The first fellow who bent over Snap happened to be the Nebraska rustler,
and he curiously opened the breech of the six-shooter he picked up.
"No shells!" he said. He pulled Snap's second Colt from his belt, and
unbreeched that. "No shells! Well, d--n me!" He surveyed the group of
grim men, not one of whom had any reply.

Holderness again laughed harshly, and turning to the cabin, he fastened
the door with a lasso.

It was a long time before Hare recovered from the starting revelation of
the plot which had put Mescal into Holderness's power. Bad as Snap
Naab had been he would have married her, and such a fate was infinitely
preferable to the one that now menaced her. Hare changed his position
and settled himself to watch and wait out the night. Every hour
Holderness and his men tarried at Silver Cup hastened their approaching
doom. Hare's strange prescience of the fatality that overshadowed these
men had received its first verification in the sudden taking off of Snap
Naab. The deep-scheming Holderness, confident that his strong band meant
sure protection, sat and smoked and smiled beside the camp-fire. He had
not caught even a hint of Snap Naab's suggested warning. Yet somewhere
out on the oasis trail rode a man who, once turned from the saving of
life to the lust to kill, would be as immutable as death itself. Behind
him waited a troop of Navajos, swift as eagles, merciless as wolves,
desert warriors with the sunheated blood of generations in their veins.
As Hare waited and watched with all his inner being cold, he could
almost feel pity for Holderness. His doom was close. Twice, when the
rustler chief had sauntered nearer to the cabin door, as if to enter,
Hare had covered him with the rifle, waiting, waiting for the step upon
the threshold. But Holderness always checked himself in time, and Hare's
finger eased its pressure upon the trigger.

The night closed in black; the clouded sky gave forth no starlight; the
wind rose and moaned through the cedars. One by one the rustlers rolled
in their blankets and all dropped into slumber while the camp-fire
slowly burned down. The night hours wore on to the soft wail of the
breeze and the wild notes of far-off trailing coyotes.

Hare, watching sleeplessly, saw one of the prone figures stir. The man
raised himself very cautiously; he glanced at his compani