Four days before, the Gunnison Express had been boarded at a watering tank, some fifty miles out of the city, by a particularly villainous band of desperadoes who, not content with looting the passengers, mails and express matter, had maliciously aggravated their crime with murder, deliberately shooting down the conductor and express messenger after the robbery had been accomplished. It was an unheard-of brutality, the men being helpless, unarmed and unresisting, and pursuit of the wretches had been so prompt and successful that every member of the gang, save the one now in the canyon before him, was presently decorating a series of telegraph posts on the outskirts of the city, their captors having given them but exceedingly short shrift. And one of them, in an unavailing attempt to enlist the mercy of his grim executioners, had confessed that Matlock was the leader of the gang; but with characteristic cowardice had refrained from personal active participation in the robbery, merely directing their operations from a safe distance as arch plotter. His trail was soon found and had been skillfully followed so far by the expert marshal, whose long experience in trailing cattle on the cow range had made him one of the best trackers in the mountains. Ballard was at a loss to account for the fatal recklessness of that shot. Matlock must certainly have known that It would betray his whereabouts and he was far too shrewd a villain to so unnecessarily expose himself to the risk of possible capture. There was but one explanation, and the marshal sent the spurs home with a great foreboding at heart. "He _had_ to fire that shot!" was the quick conjecture. "But why? He is either in a tight place or else Is up to some fearful deviltry. That was certainly a woman's cry!" He was using both spur and cuerto now, and his gallant horse was responding grandly. But before he reached the little glade, the echoes wakened to a rumbling roar at the duller concussion of a revolver shot. Then followed that most unnerving thing, the mourning of a woman for her dead. With a magnificent leap the horse cleared the brawling torrent and in the edge of the glade Ballard checked him with a savage oath. Flinging himself from the saddle, he ran eagerly forward, pulling his revolver as he went. In the middle of the glade, beside a little spring which bubbled up amidst the grass, sat a stylishly-gowned woman holding to her bosom the head of his best friend. Across the white forehead trickled down a thin crimson stream which sadly stained and discolored the fawn-colored riding habit and left its grewsome horror on the lips passionately pressed to those of the man lying so still and quiet in her rocking arms. And ten feet away, with his sightless eyes staring up at the blue sky, his shirt still smouldering from a powder burn above his heart, lay Matlock, still clutching the Mauser in his stiffening hand.