Down the trail, where it narrowed to pass between two clumps of brush, a coatless, hatless figure crouched in the left-hand thicket, the coil of rope in his left hand held low down. At irregular intervals he seemed to be suffering from an attack of ague, for he quivered and shook; and there came from him strange, subterranean rumblings and rusty wheezes which he tried to muffle with an arm. As the hoofbeats coming from town grew rapidly louder and nearer he tensed himself. The pounding rang out loudly, now, the soft jingling of chain and ornaments distinguishable in the greater sound, and soon the vague figure of a mounted man burst out of the darkness and swept past the clumps of brush. The waiting man on foot straightened his body and arm at the same moment, and at the instant the rope grew taut he pulled it sharply and leaned back with all his strength. There was an exclamation and a crash, and the man who had waited ran swiftly forward, hauling the rope in hand over hand. Kneeling at the side of the prostrate figure he slipped the guns from their holsters and threw them into the brush, and then fell back to work with the rope and the victim's kerchiefs. With the gagged, bound, and blindfolded man on his back he went up the trail toward town. Gunsight had been quiet for over an hour when a strangely shaped figure staggered across the road west of the hotel and steadily neared the shed. It came slowly around the corner and stopped at the side of the big freight wagon, where part of it went to the ground, while the remainder, appearing in the form of a man, worked at the ropes closing the tarpaulin at the rear of the wagon, and soon had it open. He stepped back for a moment as a reminder of what lay behind it struck his nostrils, and again he was seized with a recurrence of the peculiar malady which had seized him frequently in the last hour. At the muffled sounds which came from him, the figure on the ground writhed as if in sympathy and endeavored to repeat them. The attack passing, he drew a long breath and plunged his head and shoulders into the opening he had made and worked hard for a few minutes; and when he stepped back he had several pieces of rope in his hands, which he had taken from a bundle of skins. Drawing a few deep breaths he moved around the wagon and bent over the figure on the ground, exchanging the pieces of rope for his own lariat, but not without a struggle which made it necessary for him to sit on the figure and exert his strength. Tying good knots in the dark on arms and legs which writhed and twisted was slow work, but it was necessary that it be well done, and when he arose to his feet he was assured as to that. Bending over, he picked up the figure and carried it to the rear of the wagon, where he pushed it headfirst into the opening made for it, despite its contortions and gurgled profanity. Again his head and shoulders disappeared under the tarpaulin, and when he straightened up he knew that his victim was so