“No,” said Philip; but he was promising for the intention rather than for the ability. He was trembling like a leaf in the wind. It was one thing to go into battle on the crest of a wave of berserker rage, and quite another to face the hazards deliberately and in cold blood. With caution redoubled they turned the last of the jutting promontories obstructing a view of the lower reaches of the gulch. The young moon had long since dropped behind the western ranges, but the reflection of the starlight upon the white mantling of snow made the dump of broken rock and ore marking the tunnel site, and beyond it the larger bulking of the cabin, dimly discernible. Garth thrust a hand backward to signal a halt, and as he did so, a jet of flame shot from a thick graving of young firs on the right-hand slope of the gulch opposite the cabin, and, preceding the jarring report by a fraction of a second, they heard the smack of the bullet as it struck its target. “Reckon I called the turn,” Garth whispered. “Yer pardner’s holdin’ the cabin ag’in ’em. Ain’t no back door to that shack, is there?” “No.” “Well, there ain’t a ghost of a show for us to make a run for the front door; they’ve got that plum’ sewed up. We got to work it some other way. We’d ort to have one o’ them Winchesters o’ youm and a belt o’ ca’tridges. That old hoss-pistol won’t spit far enough to do much good.” “But if we had the rifle?” Philip queried. “Then we might work a li’l’ trick that’d be better than breakin’ into the cabin: might make them cusses think the whole U.S. army was after ’em.” Philip’s heart rose into his throat and threatened to choke him. On the hurried race across the spur his teeth had been chattering, and it was only by the supremest effort that he could keep them from rattling like castanets now. If the extra rifle was to be secured, it was his part to stalk the cabin and get it: Garth couldn’t do it; Bromley wouldn’t surrender the gun to a stranger--if he were still alive it was more than likely that he would mistake Garth for one of the outlaws and kill him if he could find a convenient loophole through which to shoot. Philip felt a cold sweat starting out all over his body. If he could only summon the flaming rage fit that had possessed him on the night when he had flung himself upon the drink-crazed prospector in the bar-room of the Leadville hotel ... he prayed for its return, but it wouldn’t come. By a curious telepathic prickling he knew that the big man crouching beside him sensed his condition, and his shame was complete. “You skeered?” queried Garth in a hoarse whisper. “As scared as hell!” was the gritting reply. “Just the same, I’m going after that extra gun. What shall I do after I get it?”