."

The man cursed softly. He knew that the least attempt to escape or to
attract the attention of his confederates would mean his undoing.
Something about this young man's cold eye and iron jaw told him that he
would not hesitate to shoot, if necessary.

Voices came to them from the canyon. Flatray guessed that a reconnaissance
of the gulch would be made, and prepared himself for it by deflecting his
course from the bed of the _arroyo_ at a point where the walls fell back
to form a little valley. A little grove of aspens covered densely the
shoulder of a hillock some fifty yards back, and here he took his stand.
He dismounted, and made his prisoner do the same.

"Sit down," he ordered crisply.

"What for?"

"To keep me from blowing the top of your head off," answered Jack
quietly.

Without further discussion, the man sat down. His captor stood behind him,
one hand on the shoulder of his prisoner, his eyes watching the point of
the gulch at which the enemy would appear.

Two mounted men showed presently in silhouette. Almost opposite the grove
they drew up.

"Mighty queer what has become of Hank," one of them said. "But I don't
reckon there's any use looking any farther. You don't figure he's aiming
to throw us down--do you, Buck?"

"Nope. He'll stick, Hank will. But it sure looks darned strange. Here's
him a-ridin' along with us, and suddenly he's missin'. We hear a yell, and
go back to look for him. Nothin' doin'. You don't allow the devil could
have come for him sudden--do you, Jeff?"

It was said with a laugh, defiantly, but none the less Jack read
uneasiness in the manner of the man. It seemed to him that both were eager
to turn back. Giant boulders, carved to grotesque and ghostly shapes by a
million years' wind and water, reared themselves aloft and threw shadows
in the moonlight. The wind, caught in the gulch, rose and fell in
unearthly, sibilant sounds. If ever fiends from below walk the earth, this
time and place was a fitting one for them. Jack curved a hand around his
mouth, and emitted a strange, mournful, low cry, which might have been the
scream of a lost soul.

Jeff clutched at the arm of his companion. "Did you hear that, Buck?"

"What--what do you reckon it was, Jeff?"

Again Jack let his cry curdle the night.

The outlaws took counsel of their terror. They were hardy, desperate men,
afraid of nothing mortal under the sun. But the dormant superstition in
them rose to their throats. Fe