The foreman drew a gun and holster from behind him. It was Beck's gun. He drew it from the scabbard, broke it and dropped the cartridges into his palm. Three of the shells were empty. The two gave one another stare for stare. Hepburn was breathing rapidly but his look was of a man who faces a crisis with all confidence. Beck did not move or speak. His eyes smouldered and his face settled into stern lines. Then that smouldering burst into blaze and before the glare of will the foreman's hand, holding the contents of the revolver chambers, trembled. He closed it quickly and looked away and where a moment before he had been the accuser he was now on the defense. It was determination against determination and in the conflict words were wrung from him. "Somebody fired three shots at me at the head of Twenty Mile at three o'clock this afternoon." And that sentence, though it was an indictment, was voiced more in a manner of defense than in accusation. With it Beck's expression changed; it became alert, as though following some play upon which great stakes hung, but following intelligently, not blind to the way of the game. "I can explain those empty shells. I took a shot at a coyote on the way back. I didn't see you, Hepburn, after I left here this afternoon until I got back." Webb got up. "I guess that makes the case," he said to no one in particular. Then to Tom: "I was with Dad; he was ten rod ahead of me. Th' shots come from above and landed all around him. "_We_ didn't have to look very hard for somebody who wants to get rid of Dad, but we wanted it from you, Beck." Triumph was in his little beady eyes and on his mottled face. There was a shuffling of feet and Tom hooked one thumb in his belt, with a slow, uncertain movement. His eyes held on Hepburn's face, prying, searching, striving to force a meeting but the other would not look at him, he busied himself stuffing the evidence into his shirt pocket. Riley rose and the low stir which had followed the revelation subsided. "Isn't there something else you want to say, Beck?" he asked. "Didn't you see any other man? Can't you say something for yourself?" "I didn't see another man this afternoon," the other replied, still striving to make Hepburn meet his gaze, "an' besides there don't seem to be much to say. I've told my story. It's simple enough.... You've heard the other story, which seems simple enough. Now it's my word against Hepburn's ... an' Webb's,"--as though the last were in afterthought, and of little matter. Riley faced the circle of listeners. "This is no boy's play," he said grimly. "The foreman of the biggest outfit in this country has been shot at, shot at by somebody who didn't come from cover and give him even a fair show for a fight. We know that there's been bad blood between these two men; Tommy's admitted that. I hate like hell to think he lost his head over a quarrel and that he'd fight a man from cover, but it looks bad.