"Chucks!" growled the impatient and lion-hearted cowboy. "Rats to 'em, I say! Air you a quitter, Bill Benson? You, a British navy-man, a quitter?" and there was scorn keen as a razor-edge in his drawling voice. "S'elp me Gaud, Broncho, I can't face it!" "You heard 'em, Benson," put in Hawksley, seeing his chance; "you heard 'em. Don't let that fiend hang me, or may my spirit haunt you! May my blood be on your head and put a curse on all your days!" "Silence, you gal-thief, silence!" hissed the angry cowpuncher, giving a jerk to the rope which nearly dislocated the wretched man's neck; then, addressing himself to the bluejacket, he went on: "If you-alls baulk this ford, Benson, I'll put the coward's brand on you, shore as I'm tabbed in the stud-book Buckin' Broncho." "It's no use," returned the man-of-war's man sulkily. "I ain't out to buck agin spirits--my courage don' run that swift. I ain't afraid as long as it's men, but ghosts top the limit o' my gristle. They overweights my firin'-battery absolute and entire." For a second the cowpuncher glared in silence; then, slowly drawing his revolver, cocked it and covered the bluejacket with its sinister barrel. "Mebbe this here argument'll revive you some," he drawled contemptuously. Broncho was bluffing, bluffing desperately, but he had not spent the pay of so many seasons learning poker for nothing. "Better catch a holt!" he went on significantly. "This here gun ain't out for play. It's a business proposeetion which it ain't wise nor healthy to monkey with." After one wild, searching look into the stern eyes of the cowboy, Bill Benson gave in and reluctantly resumed his hold on the rope; whilst the unhappy Hawksley, seeing his last hope gone, burst afresh into a flow of terror-inspired lamentations and prayers. At last the moment had come! "Lay back on it!" hissed the cowpuncher, as the two executioners drew the rope taut. In another second Hawksley would have been dangling in space. Already he was on the tips of his toes, when "Crack!" and the rope was cut through just above his head, and down he fell in a heap. "Hold! What the devil are you doing?" cried a panting voice, and the next moment Jack burst into the open, a smoking pistol in his hand, followed by Jim and Loyola. "You ain't wanted here, Jack Derringer," roared the baffled cowpuncher. "He's my steer, an' rope him I will! I'll take it kind if you'll quit blockin' up the scenery an' obstructin' this here execution." "Why, Broncho, what's taken you? My old bunkie isn't going to turn into a butchering desperado, is he? Come, old son, this little game of yours has gone far enough." "I stands a corralful from you, Jack, as you-alls knows; but you're playin' mighty near the limit. I asks you again to vamoose," returned the cowboy, sticking desperately to his guns; then he added more softly, "It's for your own good, pard." "No good's going to come to me by any man's murder in cold blood."