h roared and crashed about its crest.

It was after one of poor Rayburn's pitiable outbreaks of weak moaning
that Young led me away into the oratory, with the evident intention of
delivering himself of some matter that pressed heavily upon his mind.

"See here, Professor, I just _can't_ stand this any longer," he said,
when we were alone. "I'm goin' t' send word t' th' Priest Captain t'
ask him if finishin' me off in short order won't make him willin' t' let
Rayburn out o' this damp hole into some place where he can be
comfortable, an' where in th' mornin's he can get some sun an' air.
Rayburn won't mind bein' squarely killed after he's healthy again. He
ain't th' kind t' be afraid of anything when he's feelin' all right. But
it's just infernal cruelty t' kill him this way--it wouldn't be fair to
a dog. So I'm goin' t' try what I can do. It's nothin' much t' do, any
way--only runnin' a little ahead o' th' schedule, that's all."

Oddly enough, something of a like purpose had been for some time past
slowly forming in my own mind--though what I intended to do would have,
I hoped, still better consequences; for my notion was to urge that for
the pleasure that could be had from killing me, my companions should be
given such freedom as was to be found in that rock-bound region beyond
the Barred Pass. Therefore, when Young thus brought up the matter openly
between us, I told him of my own intention; and with some emphasis I
advised him that inasmuch as I first had thought of it, to me belonged
the right to carry this project into execution; and especially was this
right mine, I urged, because but for me neither he nor any of the rest
of us--saving only, possibly, Fray Antonio--ever would have come into
that valley at all. Thereupon we fell to wrangling somewhat hotly; for
Young was a most pig-headed man when his mind was set upon anything, and
his notions of argument even at the best of times were of the loosest
kind.

How our talk might have ended I cannot tell, for each of us most
resolutely was determined to have his own way; but it actually did end
because of an interruption by which we presently learned that a will
finer and stronger than either of ours had been acting, while we had
been only thinking, in a fashion that cut the ground completely from
under us both. And all that followed within the next hour or two came
upon us with so startling a suddenness that it seemed less like reality
than like a terrible dream.