nd his three followers together.

"My God!" whispered Lee Haines, with a sort of horror in his voice,
"it wasn't human! Did you see? Did you see?"

"Am I blind?" asked Hal Purvis, "an' think of me walkin' up an'
bracin' that killer like he was a two-year-old kid! I figger that's
the nearest I ever come to a undeserved grave, an' I've had some close
calls! 'That last dollar wasn't good! It didn't ring true,' says he
when he finished. I never seen such nerve!"

"You're wrong as hell," said Silent, "a _woman_ can shoot at a target,
but it takes a cold _nerve_ to shoot at a man--an' this feller is
yellow all through!"

"Is he?" growled Bill Kilduff, "well, I'd hate to take him by
surprise, so's he'd forget himself. He gets as much action out of a
common six-gun as if it was a gatling. He was right about that last
dollar, too. It was pure--lead!"

"All right, Haines," said Silent. "You c'n start now any time, an'
the rest of us'll follow on the way I said. I'm leavin' last. I got a
little job to finish up with the kid."

But Haines was staring fixedly down the road.

"I'm not leaving yet," said Haines. "Look!"

He turned to one of the cowpunchers.

"Who's the girl riding up the road, pardner?"

"That calico? She's Kate Cumberland--old Joe's gal."

"I like the name," said Haines. "She sits the saddle like a man!"

Her pony darted off from some imaginary object in the middle of the
road, and she swayed gracefully, following the sudden motion. Her
mount came to the sudden halt of the cattle pony and she slipped to
the ground before Morgan could run out to help. Even Lee Haines, who
was far quicker, could not reach her in time.

"Sorry I'm late," said Haines. "Shall I tie your horse?"

The fast ride had blown colour to her face and good spirits into her
eyes. She smiled up to him, and as she shook her head in refusal her
eyes lingered a pardonable moment on his handsome face, with the stray
lock of tawny hair fallen low across his forehead. She was used to
frank admiration, but this unembarrassed courtesy was a new world to
her. She was still smiling when she turned to Morgan.

"You told my father the boys wouldn't wear guns today."

He was somewhat confused.

"They seem to be wearin' them," he said weakly, and his eyes wandered
about the armed circle, pausing on the ominous forms of Hal Purvis,
Bill Kilduff, and especially Jim Silent, a head taller than the rest.
He stood somewhat in the background, but the