"Shut up!" broke in Isham, giving him a boot in the ribs, and as he burst out in wicked curses they crawled out the doorway and closed it with a huge flat stone. There was a hush, as their footsteps clumped away into silence, and then, beneath the shadow of the hangman's knot, the prisoners sat and stared at each other. CHAPTER II MESHACKATEE The man-trap of the Scarboroughs had caught a wampus when it snared this second rider of the trails. He was huge, and bearded like Olympian Zeus--a black, curling beard which stood out in bunches beneath strands of long, towsled hair. His nose was small and snubbed, his mouth a cavern of noise, and the rolling blue eyes revealed a depth of ferocity which argued him near to the brutes; yet as he gazed at his fellow prisoner the savagery fell away from him and his smile was almost human. "Hello there, pardner," he greeted with a nod, "so they've got you in here, too. Well by grab, I never thought, after all I been through, to git caught with a bait like that; but when I sees that rock I piles off my horse and drops down to git me a drink, and I'll be shot if Isham Scarborough wasn't right behind that boulder with his Winchester ready to shoot. I surrendered--I had to or the dirty, Texas cowards would have killed me like beefing a steer--but you wait till I git out of here and if I don't lift their hair my name ain't Meshackatee, that's all! I'll throw in with 'em if I have to--because the Bassetts are no better and I don't aim to die by hanging--but it's gitting pretty rank when a man can't ride this canyon without being roped and tied. How'd they work it to pick you up?" "The same way they caught you," confessed the other. "I got down to take a drink and when I looked up I was covered. If there hadn't been two of them----" "Yes," nodded Meshackatee, "I know how you feel--I reckon you're a man of some nerve. But them boys would've killed you without batting an eye--by the way, what'd you say your name was?" "My name is Hall," replied the stranger after a silence, and the giant bowed to him gravely. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Hall," he responded cordially. "You might've heard of Meshackatee? No? Well, that's the name I go by, the same as yours is Hall--I got it among the A-paches. Wahoo Meshackatee, but some ignorant old wallopers still insist on calling me Jinglebob. Name I had in New Mexico--got mixed up in a range war--but out here they all call me Meshackatee. Kind of an Injun name--or maybe it's Irish--the circumstances was something like this.