"Seems he didn't know her, either. Just paid a call round about dawn and then rode on. Bill comes along a little later on the trail, gets new horses from Merchant, and runs down Lanning early this morning. Runs him down, and then Lanning turns in the saddle and drills Bill through the head at five hundred yards." Henry came to life. "How far?" he said. "That's what they got over the telephone," said Scottie apologetically. "Then the news got to Hal Dozier from Merchant's house. Hal hops on the wire and gets in touch with the governor, and in about ten seconds they make this Lanning kid an outlaw and stick a price on his head--five thousand, I think, and they say Merchant is behind it. The telephone was buzzing with it when I left town, and most of the boys were oiling up their gats and getting ready to make a play. Pretty easy money, eh, for putting the rollers under a kid?" Andrew Lanning muttered aloud: "An outlaw!" "Not the first time Bill Dozier has done it," said Henry calmly. "That's an old maneuver of his--to hound a man from a little crime to a big one." The throat of Andrew was dry. "Did you get a description of young Lanning?" he asked. "Sure," nodded Scottie. "Twenty-three years old, about five feet ten, black hair and black eyes, good looking, big shoulders, quiet spoken." Andrew made a gesture and looked carelessly out the back window, but, from the corner of his eyes, he was noting the five men. Not a line of their expressions escaped him. He was seeing, literally, with eyes in the back of his head; and if, by the interchange of one knowing glance, or by a significant silence, even, these fellows had indicated that they remotely guessed his identity, he would have been on his feet like a tiger, gun in hand, and backing for the door. Five thousand dollars! What would not one of these men do for that sum? Andy had been keyed to the breaking point before; but his alertness was now trebled, and, like a sensitive barometer, he felt the danger of Larry, the brute strength of Jeff, the cunning of Henry, the grave poise of Joe, to say nothing of Scottie--an unknown force. But Scottie was running on in his talk; he was telling of how he met the storekeeper in town; he was naming everything he saw; these fellows seemed to hunger for the minutest news of men. They broke into admiring laughter when Scottie told of his victorious tilt of jesting with the storekeeper's daughter; even Henry came out of his patient gloom long enough to smile at this, and the rest were like children. Larry was laughing so heartily that his eyes began to twinkle. He even invited Andrew in on the mirth. At this point Andy stood up and stretched elaborately--but in stretching he put his arms behind him, and stretched them down rather than up, so that his hands were never far from his hips. "I'll be turning in," said Andy, and stepping back to the door so that his face would be toward them until the last instant of his exit, he waved good night.