Buck flinched from the touch and set his teeth. Ward tied his hands before him and told him to get up and go out to his horse. Buck obeyed with abject submissiveness, and Ward's lip curled again as he walked behind him to the door. He had not the slightest twinge of pity for the man. He was gloatingly glad that he could make him suffer, and he inwardly cursed his own humanity for being so merciful. He ought to have cut Buck's ear off slick and clean instead of making a bluff at it, he told himself disgustedly. Buck deserved it and more. He helped Buck into the saddle, took the short rope in his hands, and hobbled Buck's feet under the horse, grasped the bridle-reins, and mounted Rattler. Without a word he set off up the rough trail toward Hardup, leading Buck's horse behind him. CHAPTER XVII "SO-LONG, BUCK!" "Before you go, Buck, I want to tell you that you needn't jolly yourself into thinking your death will be avenged. It won't. You noticed what I wrote; and there isn't a scrap of my writing anywhere in the country to catch me up--" Ward's thoughts went to Billy Louise, who had some very good samples, and he stopped suddenly. He was trying not to think of Billy Louise, to-day. "Also, when somebody happens to ride this way and sees you, I won't be anywhere around." "This is the tree," he added, stopping under a cottonwood that flung a big branch out over the narrow cow-trail they were traveling. "The chances are friend Floyd will be ambling around this way in a day or two," he said hearteningly. "He can tend to the last sad rites and take charge of your horse. He's liable to be sore when he reads your pedigree, but I don't reckon that will make a great deal of difference. You'll get buried, all right, Buck." Ward dismounted with a most businesslike manner and untied Buck Olney's rope from the saddle. "I can't spare mine," he explained laconically. He had some trouble in fashioning a hangman's noose. He had not had much practice, he remarked to Buck after the first attempt. "How do you do it, Buck? You know more about these things than I do," he taunted. "You've helped hang lots of poor devils that will be glad to meet yuh in hell to-day." Buck Olney moistened his dry lips. Ward glanced at his face and looked quickly away. Staring, abject terror is not nice to look upon, even though the man is your worst enemy and is suffering justly for his sins. Ward's fingers fumbled the rope as though his determination were weakening. Then he remembered some things, hunched his shoulders, impatient of the merciful impulse, and began the knot again. An old prospector had shown him once how it was done. "Of course, a plain slip-knot would do the business all right," he said. "But I'll try and give you the genuine thing, same as you gave the other fellows." "Ward, for God's sake, let me go!"