savagely. "You'd
go down the Devil's Slide--what's left of you, I mean--deep into that
prospect hole. The timberings are rotted and the whole top of the working
ready to cave in. When your body hits it there will be an avalanche--with
Mr. Former-sheriff Cullison at the bottom of it. You'll be buried without
any funeral expenses, and I reckon your friends will never know where to
put the headstone."

The thing was devilishly simple and feasible. Luck, still looking out of
the window, felt the blood run cold down his spine, for he knew this
fellow would never stick at murder if he felt it would be safe. No doubt
he was being well paid, and though in this workaday world revenge has gone
out of fashion there was no denying that this ruffian would enjoy evening
the score. But his confederate was of another stripe, a human being with
normal passions and instincts. The cattleman wondered how he could
reconcile it to his conscience to go into so vile a plot with a villain
like the convict.

"So you see I'm right; you'd better pray your friends _won't_ find you.
They can't reach here without being heard. If they get to hunting these
hills you sure want to hope they'll stay cold, for just as soon as they
get warm it will be the signal for you to shoot the chutes."

Luck met his triumphant savagery with an impassive face. "Interesting if
true. And where will you be when my friends arrive. I reckon it won't be a
pleasant meeting for Mr. Blackwell."

"I'll be headed for Mexico. I tell you because you ain't liable to go
around spreading the news. There's a horse saddled in the dip back of the
hill crest. Get it?"

"Fine," Cullison came back. "And you'll ride right into some of Bucky
O'Connor's rangers. He's got the border patroled. You'd never make it."

"Don't worry. I'd slip through. I'm no tenderfoot."

"What if you did? Bucky would drag you back by the scruff of the neck in
two weeks. Remember Chavez."

He referred to a murderer whom the lieutenant of rangers had captured and
brought back to be hanged later.

"Chavez was a fool."

"Was he? You don't get the point. The old days are gone. Law is in the
saddle. Murder is no longer a pleasant pastime." And Cullison stretched
his arms and yawned.

From far below there came through the open window the faint click of a
horse's hoofs ringing against the stones in the dry bed of a river wash.
Swiftly Blackwell moved to the door, taking down a rifle from its rack as
he did so