“Then, do what I tell ye!” roared the desperado leader. “Git yer rifle, and put a bullet through this carrion, and show you’re a man, with the nerve of a man.” Pool Clayton whitened still more, and trembled visibly. The outlaws pressed close about him, staring into his face, noting this sign of what they considered weakness and cowardice. Snaky Pete’s eyes glittered like the eyes of the basilisk. “Do ye hear me?” he yelled. Clayton half turned about, as if he intended to obey; then stopped. “I--I can’t do it!” he gasped. “Don’t ask me to.” Snaky Pete came closer to him, his huge first doubled. “Do you obey orders?” he shouted. “Yes--but----” Crack! Snaky Pete’s heavy fist shot out, and struck the youth full in the face, knocking him down. Clayton fell, clawing at the air; and then lay still where he had fallen. The outlaw leader stepped toward him, as if he meant to administer a kick in addition to the blow. “You’re the one that’s a tarnal coward!” old Nomad muttered. “I never seen a man o’ that kind that wasn’t.” He was apparently the only calm person there; though it was his life that was threatened. Snaky Pete lifted his heavy boot to kick Clayton, then repented of his intention. “Let him lay!” he snarled. “He’ll come ’round all right. And we’ll move on. He ain’t got the spirit of a skunk.” The outlaws began to get their horses ready for moving on. Snaky Pete walked up to his prisoner. He looked fairly fiendish in the flickering firelight. “Don’t git gay over this!” he growled. “You’ll go over the range in the morning, just the same. That young skunk will come ’round bimeby and foller on, and then will be meek as a kitten. He’ll finish you with that bullet, and be glad to, before we git through with him.” The sage old trapper did not answer this brutal speech. He had learned wisdom with his years. When the desperadoes lifted him to the back of old Nebuchadnezzar the cords slipped from one of his wrists. He did not try to take advantage of it, so far as attempting an escape was concerned; but in writhing around, as he struggled to straighten up on his horse, he contrived to drop from an inner pocket the letter which Buffalo Bill found. The shrewd old trapper was sure that sooner or later the keen-eyed scout would hit that trail, and then would find that letter, and he believed that if he could contrive to keep the breath of life in his body until Buffalo Bill was given time to do something, his chances of escape were yet good. Hence, he resolved to do nothing to unduly anger this truculent outlaw chief and his men. “I kin be as humble as a creepin’ field mouse, when I haf to,” was his thought, “and meek and humble is my lay now; maybe it’ll pull me through.” When the outlaws went on they left Pool Clayton lying unconscious on the grass, his horse lariated and grazing close by him. CHAPTER VI. ABANDONED.