I'm going
by Vermilion Valley, and Mono Pass. If they ask you, you can tell 'em
different. I want you to do something for me."

"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"

"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dismounting. "He stands
fine tied to the ground, but there's a few things he's plumb afraid of,
and I don't want to take chances on his getting away. He goes plumb off
the grade for freight teams; he can't stand the crack of their whips.
Sounds like a gun to him, I reckon. He won't stand for shooting
neither."

While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his hair rope into Bob's
keeping.

"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.

George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At Supervisor Plant's
front gate, he turned and passed within. Bob saw him walk rapidly up the
front walk, and pound on Plant's bedroom door. This, as usual in the
mountains, opened directly out on the verandah. With an exclamation Bob
sprang forward, dropping the hair rope. He was in time to see the
bedroom door snatched open from within, and Plant's huge figure,
white-robed, appear in the doorway. The Supervisor was evidently angry.

"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.

"You," said the mountaineer.

He dropped his hand quite deliberately to his holster, flipped the
forty-five out to the level of his hip, and fired twice, without looking
at the weapon. Plant's expression changed; turned blank. For an
appreciable instant he tottered upright, then his knees gave out beneath
him and he fell forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over him.
Apparently satisfied after a moment's inspection, the mountaineer
straightened, dropped his weapon into the holster, and turned away.

All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob had not moved
five feet from the moment he guessed Pollock's intention to the end of
the tragedy. As the first shot rang out, Bob turned and seized again the
hair rope attached to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and
cool judgment showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere,
and revealed to him what he must do.

Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took the rope Bob
handed him and swung into the saddle. His calm had fallen from him. His
eyes burned and his face worked. With a muffled cry of pain he struck
spurs to his horse and disappeared.

Considerably shaken, Bob stood still, considering what he must do. It
was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm