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. Cullison rose noiselessly in his chair. If it came to the worst he meant to shout aloud his presence and close with this fellow. Hampered as he was by the table, the man would get him without question. But if he could only sink his fingers into that hairy throat while there was still life in him he could promise that the Mexican trip would never take place. Blackwell, from his place by the door, could keep an eye both on his prisoner and on a point of the trail far below where horsemen must pass to reach the cabin. "Sit down," he ordered. Cullison's eyes were like finely-tempered steel. "I'd rather stand." "By God, if you move from there----" The man did not finish his sentence, but the rifle was already half lifted. More words would have been superfluous. A rider came into sight and entered the mouth of the cañon. He was waving a white handkerchief. The man in the doorway answered the signal.