"Next'un's goin' through your haid, Pete. Si' down." Pete sat. Barr grinned. Jeff dared let himself think of the prospect that awaited. Tomorrow morning, side by side and at exactly the same time, Jeff and Pete would be allowed to leave the cabin. Jeff pulled his stomach in, as though he could already feel Pete's slug ripping through it. Again he pondered escaping, but all he could think of was what he had already considered. If he ran, one of the waiting Whitneys would shoot him down when he came off the ridge. There was little chance of doing anything tonight; Barr was along to see that he didn't. He couldn't protect himself with paper bullets. Jeff had a wild notion of whirling as they stepped out the door, smashing Pete over the head with the muzzle of his shotgun, and trying to claim him as prisoner. But that was a very wild plan which had almost no chance of success. Pete was far too quick and far too expert a rifleman. Jeff put such thoughts behind him. No man could do anything well if he tried to do more than one thing at a time, and first things must be first. He shivered. "How about a fire, Barr?" "Lay a blaze if'n ye want. Thar's wood in the box." Jeff laid a fire, lighted it and stood with his back to the fireplace as flames crackled. He looked at a darkened window and had a curious thought that this night would never end. It should, he decided, have passed long ago. But when he looked at his watch, it was only half past nine. He should be hungry but he wasn't. They'd eaten in Johnny Blazer's cabin, and now he was too nervous to eat. After a very long interval, he looked again at his watch. It was a quarter to ten. Jeff glanced at his pack and created mental images of the goods it contained. There were knives, fishing tackle, a half dozen new mouth organs, fiddle strings, gay ribbons, scissors, needles--He had bought only what the hill people wanted, and among all of it he could not think of a single article that would help him now. Jeff set his jaw. Maybe, if there was something to do, time would not drag so slowly and, besides, he could think better when he was busy. "Play cards?" he invited. "No." Barr shook his head. "Oh, come on!" Barr tipped his head toward Pete, who sat motionless, with his rifle across his lap. Unmoving, he missed nothing and was ready at a split second notice to take advantage of anything that offered. "Take his rifle away," Jeff urged. "You can still watch him." "A body has the right to keep his rifle." "He sure is nursing it." Jeff felt reckless. "How about sitting in, Pete? We don't have to shoot each other before morning." Pete refused to answer. Jeff pulled his chair to the table and tried to entertain himself with solitaire. But he was too tense and strained to concentrate, and when he found himself adding the four of hearts to the seven of spades, he shoved the cards across the table and let them lay there. Restlessly he threw another chunk of wood on the fire and turned to Barr.