crowd.
"You needn't try any funny work, young man, or I'll tie you hand as
well as foot!" he threatened sternly. "Give me that rope, Davis."

Then Jack paid in pain for his vanity, and paid in full. The Captain
did not bind his arms--perhaps because of the crowd and a desire to
seem merciful. But though he merely tied the prisoner's ankle after
the usual manner, he knotted the small rope with a vicious yank,
pulled it as tight as he could and passed the rope under the flinching
belly of the buckskin to Davis, on the other side. Also he sent a
glance of meaning which the other read unerringly and obeyed most
willingly. Davis drew the rope taut under the cinch and tied Jack's
other ankle as if he were putting the diamond hitch on a pack mule.
The two stepped back and eyed him sharply for some sign of pain, when
all was done.

"Thanks," drawled Jack. "Sorry I can't do as much for you." Whereupon
he set his teeth against the growing agony of strained muscles and
congesting arteries, and began to roll a cigarette with fingers which
he held rigidly from trembling.

Bill Wilson, returning gloomily to the doorway of his place, grated an
oath and turned away his head.

Some day, he promised himself vengefully, those two--yes, and the
whole group of murderers moving briskly away from the tent--would pay
for that outrage; and he prayed that the day might come soon.

He went heavily into the big room where men were already foregathering
to gossip between drinks of the trial and of the man who was to die.
Bill bethought him of the young stranger; made some inquiries of
certain inoffensive individuals among the crowd, and sent Jim out with
instructions to find the kid and bring him back with him.

Bill was standing in the door waiting for Jim to return, when, in a
swirl of dust, came Dade galloping around a corner and to the
very doorstep before he showed any desire to slow up. At the first
tightening of the reins, the white horse stiffened his front legs, dug
two foot-long furrows and stopped still. Bill had no enthusiasm for
the perfect accomplishment of the trick. He stood with his hands
thrust deep into his pockets and regarded the rider glumly.

"Well, you got here," he grunted, with the brevity of utter misery.

"You bet I did! I was away from the hacienda when the peon came, or
I'd have got here sooner," Dade explained cheerfully, swinging to the
ground with a jingle of his big, Mexican spurs that had little silver