Taylor had ridden toward Bud, and was a hundred feet in advance of Norton when Bud pulled King to a halt, shouting: “Keats and a dozen men are right behind me—a mile; mebbe two! He’s got a warrant for you, chargin’ you with murderin’ Larry Harlan! I heard one of his scum sayin’ it was to be a clean-up!” Taylor laughed; he did not seem to be at all interested in Keats or his men, who at that instant were riding at a pace that was likely to kill their horses, should they be forced to maintain it. “Who accused me of murdering Harlan?” “Keats didn’t say. But I heard a guy sayin’ that Carrington was wantin’ Keats to take you dead!” The cold gleam in Taylor’s eyes and the slight, stiff grin that wreathed his lips, indicated that he had determined that Keats would have to kill him before taking him. “A dozen of them, eh?” he said, looking from Bud to Norton deliberately. “Well, that’s a bunch for three men to fight, but it isn’t enough to run from. We’ll stay here and have it out with them. That is,” he added with a quick, quizzical look at the two men, “if one of you is determined to stay.” “One of us?” flared Bud. He gazed hard at Norton, with suspicion and belligerence in his glance. Norton flushed at the look. “I reckon we’ll both be in at the finish,” added Bud. “Only one,” declared Taylor. “We might hold a dozen men off here for a good many hours. But if they were wise and patient they’d get us. One man will light out for Kelso Basin to get the outfit. Settle it between you, but be quick about it!” Taylor swung down from his horse, led the animal out of sight behind a jutting crag into a sort of pocket in the side of the gorge, where there would be no danger of the magnificent beast being struck by a bullet. Taylor pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath, examined the mechanism, looked at his pistols, and then returned to where Bud Hemmingway and Neil Norton sat on their horses. Bud’s face was flushed and Norton was grinning. And at just the instant Taylor came in sight of them Norton was saying: “Well, if you insist, I suppose I shall have to go to Kelso. There isn’t time to argue.” Norton wheeled his horse, and, with a quick grin at Taylor, sent the animal clattering down the gorge. Bud’s grin at Taylor was pregnant with guilt. “Norton didn’t want me to stay. There’s lots of stubborn cusses in the world—now, ain’t they?” Taylor’s answering smile showed that he understood. “Get King back here with Spotted Tail, Bud!” he directed. “And take that pile of rocks for cover. They’re coming!” By the time Bud did as he had been bidden, and was crouching behind a huge mound of broken rock on the north side of the gorge, Taylor on the southern side, with a twenty-foot passage on the comparatively level floor of the gorge between them, and an uninterrupted sweep of narrow level in front of them, except for here and there a jutting rock or a boulder, they saw Keats and his men just entering the stretch of broken country.