"Take it out by the neck, Blenham," said Steve sternly. "Take it out by the neck and pass it to me, butt end first! _Sabe_? I'm guessing the kind of drink you'd like to set up." Blenham's one eye and Steve's two clashed; Woods watched interestedly. He even laughed as at last, with an exclamation which was as much a groan as a curse, Blenham jerked out his gun and flung it down on his quilt. Steve took it up and shoved it into his pocket. "There's jus' a han'ful of men over to the cookhouse," said Woods humorously. "Havin' stuck up me an' Blenham you oughtn't to have no trouble over there!" "How many men?" demanded Steve quietly. "Thirteen, if I counted right, eh, Woods? That's no kind of a number to pin your hopes on! And now listen; I'll cut it short: If there is any trouble this morning, if any man gets hurt, remember that this is my land, that you jaspers are trespassing, that I am simply defending my property. In other words, you're in wrong. You'll be skating on pretty thin ice if you just plead later on that you were obeying orders from Blenham; follow Blenham long enough and you'll get to the pen. Now, I'm going outside. You and Blenham stay in here until I call for you. I'll shut the door; you leave it shut. Take time to roll yourself a smoke and think things over before you start anything, Joe Woods." Then swiftly he whipped open the door, stepped out, and snapped it shut after him. "I'm taking a chance," he muttered, his eyes hard, his jaw set and thrust forward. "A good long chance. But that's the way to play the game!" The door of the cook's shed, facing him from across the creek, was still closed. Steve moved a dozen paces down-stream; now he could command Woods's cabin with the tail of his eye, look straight into the kitchen when the door opened, keep an eye upon the one little square window. "It's all in the cards," he told himself grimly. "A man can win a jack pot on a pair of deuces, if he plays the game right!" At this point Packard's Creek is narrow; the distance between the spot where he stood and the door of the cook-shed was not over forty feet. He shifted Woods's gun to his left hand, taking into his right Blenham's old-style revolver which was more to his fancy. Then, to get matters under way in as emphatic a manner as he knew how, he sent a bullet crashing through the cook's roof. The murmur of voices died away suddenly; it was intensely still for a moment; then there was a scrambling, a scraping of heavy boots and dragging benches, and the cook's door snapped back against the outside wall, the opening filled with hulking forms, as men crowded to see what was happening. What they saw was the nose of Blenham's gun in Steve's hand. "Back up there," shouted Packard. "Stand still while you listen to me."