arted forward again. He knew. After all, Queen's blood would not
be on his hands. Gordon and Fredericks in their death throes had given
the rustler mortal wounds. Jean kept on, marveling the while. How
ghastly thin and hard! Those four days of flight had been hell for
Queen.

Jean reached him--looked down with staring eyes. The guns were tied to
his hands. Jean started violently as the whole direction of his mind
shifted. A lightning glance showed that Queen had been propped against
the tree--another showed boot tracks in the dust.

"By Heaven, they've fooled me!" hissed Jean, and quickly as he leaped
behind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlers
who had waylaid him thus. He felt the shock, the bite and burn of lead
before he heard a rifle crack. A bullet had ripped through his left
forearm. From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along the
face of the bluff--the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance had
descried as one of menace. Then several puffs of white smoke and
ringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters. Bullets barked
the pine and whistled by. Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock and,
leaning over, run for another. Jean's swift shot stopped him midway.
He fell, got up, and floundered behind a bush scarcely large enough to
conceal him. Into that bush Jean shot again and again. He had no pain
in his wounded arm, but the sense of the shock clung in his
consciousness, and this, with the tremendous surprise of the deceit,
and sudden release of long-dammed overmastering passion, caused him to
empty the magazine of his Winchester in a terrible haste to kill the
man he had hit.

These were all the loads he had for his rifle. Blood passion had made
him blunder. Jean cursed himself, and his hand moved to his belt. His
six-shooter was gone. The sheath had been loose. He had tied the gun
fast. But the strings had been torn apart. The rustlers were shooting
again. Bullets thudded into the pine and whistled by. Bending
carefully, Jean reached one of Queen's guns and jerked it from his
hand. The weapon was empty. Both of his guns were empty. Jean peeped
out again to get the line in which the bullets were coming and, marking
a course from his position to the cover of the forest, he ran with all
his might. He gained the shelter. Shrill yells behind warned him that
he had been seen, that his reason for flight had been guessed. Looking
back, he saw