They hesitated, wondering. A man growled something, his voice deep-throated and truculent. Another man laughed. The forms filling the doorway began a slow bulging outward as other forms behind crowded upon them. Within Woods's cabin there was a little noise. "You men are leaving to-day," said Steve hastily. "Just as fast as you can pull your freight. Blenham and Woods are going with you. All told there are above a dozen of you and only one of me. But I've got Woods's gun and Blenham's and I happen to mean business. This is my outfit; if you fellows start anything and there is trouble, why you're on the wrong side of the fence. Besides, you're apt to get hurt. Blenham and Woods are quitting cold; so far as I can see you boys would be a pack of fools to make more of a stand than they are doing." The man who had laughed and who now thrust his face forward through his companions, grinned widely and announced: "We mightn't worry none about where Blenham an' Joe get off. But we ain't had our breakfasts yet!" "You don't get any breakfast on my land!" said Steve sharply, more afraid just now of having to do with good nature than with anger. For if the dozen men there simply laughed and stepped out and dispersed, his hands would be tied; he couldn't shoot down a lot of joking men and he knew it. And they would know it. "You're on your way right now! You, there!" This to a big, stoop-shouldered young giant in the fore, blue-eyed, straw-haired, northern-looking. "Step out this way, Sandy! And step lively." The northerner shrugged and looked belligerent. Steve moistened his lips. "You can't bluff me--" began the northerner. And Steve knew that, having gone this far, he could not stop at bluffing. And he knew that he must not seem to hesitate. "I can shoot as straight as most men," he said smoothly. "But sometimes I miss an inch or two at this distance. You men who don't want to take any unnecessary chances had better give Sandy a little more elbow-room!" The stoop-shouldered man squared himself a little, jerked up his head, took on a fresh air of defiance. Slowly Steve lifted the muzzle of his gun--slowly a man drew back from the northerner, a man fell away to the right, a man drew a hasty pace back at the left. He was left standing in the middle of the open doorway. He shifted a little, doubled his fists at his sides, twisted his head. Again a noise from Woods's cabin. Steve saw that the door had quietly opened six inches. There was a quick movement within; the door was flung wide open. Woods was standing in the opening, a rifle in his hands, the barrel trained on Steve's chest. Steve saw the look in Woods's eye, whirled and fired first. The rifle bullet cut whistling high through the air; Woods dropped the rifle and reeled and went down under the impact of a leaden missile from a forty-five calibre revolver. The rifle lay just outside now.