"But--but you're going to kill them!" protested Johnson in a frenzy. "Git out there!" cursed Grimes, grabbing him roughly by the neck, "and you stand up to it, or I'll shoot you in the back!" Johnson drew a great breath and stepped out the door just as the horsemen came galloping up. In the lead came Elmo, setting his horse up to make a show; but the man who was behind him reined his horse in more warily, glancing quickly about as he stopped. Meshackatee peeped out through a loop-hole, nodded his head at Grimes, and stepped to the side of the doorway. "Who's in there?" demanded Elmo, hearing the quick stir of feet, and Meshackatee threw up his gun. "Surrender!" he shouted, "in the name of the----" _Bang!_ went Grimes' rifle and Elmo lopped forward, shot dead by the heavy .45. The man behind made a grab for his carbine, then whirled his horse to flee; but before he could start there was a volley from the foundation and he pitched off, still clutching at his gun. The horse raced away, pitching and kicking at the saddlegun, which hung flopping, half-drawn from the scabbard; and this was the messenger of defeat for the Scarboroughs--another empty saddle coming home. They who lived by the sword had perished by the sword--the ambushers had run into an ambush. And in this last disaster Isham Scarborough read his doom. When the morning came again he was gone. CHAPTER XXVI THE MAN-TRAP The Scarborough gang disappeared over night, disappeared and was lost track of completely, and its dissolution was as complete as that of a bubble which suddenly explodes and is gone. The outlaws and horse-thieves who had so terrorized the country, carrying their trade as far as Wyoming and Texas, took to the hills and were gone, leaving the stock they had stolen to be rounded up and restored by Meshackatee. In the corrals by the Rock House horses and cattle awaited their owners; and the Rock House itself, once the holdout of the gang, became the abode of Tonto County deputies. But Isham himself, the wolf who had turned fox, was lost and could not be found. He had started west, taking the trail to the Geronimo, and somewhere on the way he had disappeared. For hundreds of miles along the base of the Rim, and for thousands of square miles along its top, there was a forest of pines as unbroken as the first wilderness, as untracked as the Arctic regions. Once out of the trail a man was lost to all pursuit but, knowing his directions, he was free to ride on as he pleased until he came to the edge of the forest. Into this covert of trees and brush Isham had slipped like a weasel, leaving his wife to ride on to Geronimo; but McIvor cut his trail at last, and, after a month of hard riding, he too rode into Geronimo. For the wolf, now turned fox, had doubled on his tracks and taken shelter within the shadow of the law.