The man below forced himself to speak steadily: "There's no other way out? You're determined to top it all off with murder; eh?" "Shorely." Mayfield's opaque eyes narrowed wickedly. "Shorely. I've lived my whole life to git to this one minute. Ef ye wants to say yore little 'Now I Lay Me,' git at it!" Wolfe shuddered in spite of himself, though he bravely kept the other from seeing it. Death seemed inevitable. If he must go the long, long way, he would go as nearly without pain as he might; besides, he believed that a bold front would go farther than anything else toward saving him--and the wretch should not have the satisfaction of even suspecting that he was afraid. "Harm Tot, if you dare--and if a man can rise from his grave I'll rise from mine," he said quietly. "Let's see whether you can hit my fingernail, Cat-Eye." He put the tip of his right forefinger squarely on the center of his badly-bruised forehead. His hot mountaineer blood was thrumming in his ears now. "Hold it thar!" said Mayfield. Wolfe held it there. Mayfield drew back the rifle's hammer, and began to take aim without a rest; he was a good enough marksman for that. Wolfe watched Mayfield as though there was something about the villain that fascinated him. A minute passed, an eternity in sixty seconds, and then a spirit of terror seized the man below. The suspense bore down upon him with a weight that was smothering. He felt that he must cry out to Mayfield and implore him to put an end to it. But he kept his lips resolutely closed, and his gaze remained riveted unfalteringly upon the unwinking black eye beyond the sights of his own repeater. "Huh!" Mayfield grunted suddenly. There is no doubt that Wolfe's quite terrible gaze had something to do with it--Cat-Eye Mayfield lowered the rifle, and shrugged his narrow shoulders oddly. "Huh!" he grunted again. "It wouldn't last nigh long enough to suit me, Little Buck." The pain in Wolfe's injured limb was greater than ever in that moment, but he kept from wincing, for he knew that the other would certainly regard it as an exhibition of fright. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "Jest what I said; nothin' more, and nothin' less. I'm purty shore I can fix up somethin' 'at'll beat killin' ye this a-way. Yeuh, I'm purty dang shore I can." "Probably," nodded Wolfe. "Ye see," Mayfield went on devilishly, "I might hatch up some way to sep'rate you and Tot, or somethin' like that, ye know. Well, I reckon ye hain't never heerd what happened to yore pap and his outfit atter you and Tot left the basin, have ye? Ef ye hain't, I'll find big pleasure in a-bein' the one to tell ye. Hey?" "What happened to them?"