"I don't believe it!" declared Penny hotly. "Yuma was Gimlet's friend. Yuma was my friend too. He tried to reason with Uncle Bryant, and when he couldn't he left here. Oh, no, no, no! Yuma wouldn't murder anyone, least of all old Gimlet." Penny picked up the silver bullet and clutched it in her tiny fist. "There must be a mistake," she sobbed. "If Yuma didn't kill him," said the Lone Ranger, "we'll soon know who did. In the meantime, I'll take this paper to Bryant to see what he has to say about it." Lonergan, the gambler-lawyer, spoke. "D'you mind," he drawled in a cocksure manner, "if I have a few words to say?" "Well?" "It strikes me, stranger, that you're in a hell of a spot right now, and you don't know just what to do about it. You're like the gent that had a wildcat by the tail and didn't dare let go." "Go on," snapped the masked man. Lonergan's lean fingers, resting on the table, beat a soft rhythm. He spoke with an assurance that was annoying, to say the least. "You've ravaged the privacy of this ranch and illegally entered a private home without permission. You've flaunted that gun in our faces and asked a lot of questions. You've stolen a legal form that isn't yours by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's none of your damned business what goes on here." "Any more to say, Lonergan?" "Plenty. You can't stay here from now on. You don't know when the rest of the men will come back and make it hot for you. You can't prove any of the charges you've made or hinted at, or anything that the girl has said. Besides, I don't expect the law would listen to you while you're wearin' that mask. You'd like to turn us all over to the law and collect some rewards, but that'd be downright hard to handle because there's quite a few of us here and you'd have to take us through the Gap and run the risk of meeting our friends. You can't very well take the girl and the four youngsters away with you for the same reason. You leave here alone, and we'll simply make out another form like the one you've stuck in your pocket and have the signatures made all over again. When you leave, there's a damn good chance that one of us will drill you." Penny thought she saw uneasiness in the masked man. She glanced from him to Lonergan while she too wondered what could be done. She wanted nothing less than to be left there with those killers, especially after what she had heard about Gimlet and Yuma. Now there would be no one to witness whatever might transpire. "Have you," asked the masked man, "any propositions?" Penny saw the wink that Lonergan showed Sawtell; she wondered if the masked man saw it too. "Maybe so," the gambler said. "You seem to know a lot about things here. Now just forget what you know, take off that mask, and let us see who you are, and then either join up with us or ride away and keep your mouth shut."