The Circle Y man sat erect, startled. "Well, I'll be----" he began, speaking to Potter. But the printer was following his chief and was already out of hearing. "Now what do you suppose----" again began the Circle Y man, and then fell silent, suddenly smitten with the uselessness of speech. He yelled at his gaunt steers and shifted the calf in front of him to a more comfortable position. Then he proceeded on his way. But as he rode his lips curled, his eyes narrowed, and speech again returned to him. "Now why in hell would a man get so damned excited over hearin' that someone was goin' to string up a measly rustler?" The interrogation remained unanswered. The Circle Y man continued on his way, watching the fast disappearing dust clouds on the Circle Bar trail. When Hollis reached the Circle Bar ranchhouse there was no one about. He rode up to the front gallery and dismounted, thinking that perhaps Norton would be in the house. But before he had crossed the gallery Mrs. Norton came to the door. She was pale and laboring under great excitement, but instantly divined Hollis's errand. "They've taken him down to the cottonwood" she told Hollis, pointing toward the grove in which Hollis had tried the six-shooter that Norton had given him the first day after his arrival at the ranch. "They are going to hang him! Hurry!" Hollis was back in the saddle in an instant and racing his pony down past the bunk house at break-neck speed. He urged the little animal across an intervening stretch of plain, up a slight rise, down into a shallow valley, and into the cottonwood, riding recklessly through the trees and urging the pony at a headlong pace through the underbrush--crashing it down, scaring the rattlers from their concealment, and startling the birds from their lofty retreats. For ten minutes he rode as he had never ridden before. And then he came upon them. They stood at the base of a fir-balsam, whose gnarled limbs spread flatly outward--three Circle Bar men, a half dozen from the various outfits whose herds grazed his range, and the rustler--Greasy--a rope knotted about his neck, standing directly under one of the out-spreading limbs of the tree, his head bowed, but his face wearing a mocking, defiant grin. The rope had been thrown over the limb and several men were holding it, preparatory to drawing it taut. Norton was standing near, his face pale, his lips straight and grim with determination. Apparently Hollis had arrived just in time. None of the men moved from their places when Hollis dismounted, but all looked at him as though expecting him to express approval of what they were about to do. Several lowered their gaze with embarrassment when they saw that he did not approve.