lair and Barney Rebstock had disappeared.

Suddenly he realized that the bullets from the point were not coming
his way. He was aware of a second rifle-duel above the bend. Wickwire,
worming his way down the stream, had uncovered Sinclair and young
Rebstock from behind. A yell between the shots rang across the wash,
and the cringing figure of a man ran out toward Whispering Smith with
his hands high in the air, and pitched headlong on the ground. It was
the skulker, Barney Rebstock, driven out by Wickwire's fire.

The, shooting ceased. Silence fell upon the gloom of the dusk. Then
came a calling between Smith and Wickwire, and a signalling of
pistol-shots for their companions. Kennedy and Bob Scott dashed down
toward the river-bed on their horses. Seagrue lay on his face. Young
Rebstock sat with his hands around his knees on the sand. Above him at
some distance, Wickwire and Smith stood before a man who leaned
against the sharp cheek of the bowlder at the point. In his hands his
rifle was held across his lap just as he had dropped on his knee to
fire. He had never moved after he was struck. His head, drooping a
little, rested against the rock, and his hat lay on the sand; his
heavy beard had sunk into his chest and he kneeled in the shadow,
asleep. Scott and Kennedy knew him. In the mountains there was no
double for Murray Sinclair.

When he jumped behind the point to pick Whispering Smith off the ledge
he had laid himself directly under Wickwire's fire across the wash.
The first shot of the cowboy at two hundred yards had passed, as he
knelt, through both temples.

They laid him at Seagrue's side. The camp was made beside the dead men
in the wash. "You had better not take him to Medicine Bend," said
Whispering Smith, sitting late with Kennedy before the dying fire. "It
would only mean that much more unpleasant talk and notoriety for her.
The inquest can be held on the Frenchman. Take him to his own ranch
and telegraph the folks in Wisconsin--God knows whether they will want
to hear. But his mother is there yet. But if half what Barney has told
to-night is true it would be better if no one ever heard."

CHAPTER XLV

BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

In the cottage in Boney Street, one year later, two women were
waiting. It was ten o'clock at night.

"Isn't it a shame to be disappointed like this?" complained Dicksie,
pushing her hair impatiently back. "Really, poor George is worked to
death. He was to be in at si