Taylor did not know that Carrington had hunted Morton up, paying him well to bring the murder charge, but Taylor did know that he was innocent of murder; and by linking Morton with Carrington he could readily understand why Keats wanted him. He broke the silence with a short: “Who issued the warrant?” “Judge Littlefield.” “Well,” said Taylor, “you can take it right back to him and tell him to let Carrington serve it. For,” he added, a note of grim humor creeping into his voice, “I’m a heap particular about such things, Keats. I couldn’t let a sneak like you take me in. And I don’t like the looks of that dirty-looking outfit with you. And so I’m telling you a few things. I’m giving you one minute to hit the breeze out of this section. If you’re here when that time is up, I down _you_, Keats! Slope!” Keats flashed one glance around at his men. Some of them already had their horses in motion; others were nervously fingering their bridle-reins. Keats sneered at the rock nest ahead of him. The intense silence which followed Taylor’s warning lasted about ten seconds. Then Keats’s face paled; he wheeled his horse and sent it scampering over the back trail, his men following, crowding him hard. CHAPTER XXVII—BESIEGED Hemmingway tentatively suggested that a ride through the gorge toward the Kelso Basin might simplify matters for himself and Taylor; it might, he said, even seem to make the defending of their position unnecessary. But his suggestions met with no enthusiasm from Taylor, who lounged among the rocks of his place of concealment calmly smoking. Taylor gave some reasons for his disinclination to adopt Hemmingway’s suggestions. “Norton will be back in an hour, with Bothwell and the outfit.” And now he grinned as he looked at Bud. “Miss Harlan told me to be careful about my scratches. I take it she don’t want no more sieges with a sick man. And I’m taking her advice. If I’d go to riding my horse like blazes, maybe I _would_ get sick again. And she wouldn’t take care of me anymore. And I’d hate like blazes to run from Keats and his bunch of plug-uglies!” So Hemmingway said no more on that subject. They smoked and talked and watched the trail for signs of Keats and his men; while the sun, which had been behind the towering hills surrounding the gorge, traveled slowly above them, finally blazing down from a point directly overhead. It became hot in the gorge; the air was stifling and the heat uncomfortable. Taylor did not seem to mind it, but Bud, with a vigorous appetite, and longings that ran to flapjacks and sirup, grew impatient. “If a man could eat now,” he remarked once, while the sun was directly overhead, “why, it wouldn’t be so bad!” And then, after the sun’s blazing rays had begun to diminish in intensity somewhat, Bud looked upward and saw that the shimmering orb had passed beyond the crest of a towering hill. He looked sharply at Taylor, who was intently watching the back trail, and said gravely: