ise, then fell
back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand
and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously,
then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those
which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up.
Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing.
Again his eyes tightened.

"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly.

No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest.

"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead.

This time there was response--of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and
got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his
blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises
of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the
bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a
superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the
regular breathing showed he was again asleep.

During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps,
as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself
from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable
himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the
haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He
could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of
the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every
one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning
could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the
air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could
not feel--long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear,
deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the
years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man
whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first
time in his wretched life, personal death--not of another but of
himself--looked at him with steady eyes, and he could not return the
gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think--and thoughts were madness.
Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a
diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but
relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a
rope, a stout ro