As Mead spoke he was listening intently. He heard Antone's horse stop a little way behind him, and, as the last word left his lips, the hiss of the rope through the air. With a dig of the spurs and a sharp jerk of the bridle the horse reared. The noose fell over Mead's head, but his revolver was already in his hand, and with a turn as quick as a lightning flash he swung the horse round on its hind legs in a quarter circle and before the astounded Mexican could tighten the loop there were two flashing reports and a bullet had crashed through each wrist. Antone's arms dropped on his saddle, and through the shrill din of the mingled Spanish and English curses he shrieked at Mead came the sharp cracking of three revolvers. Emerson Mead felt one bullet whistle through his sleeve and one through the rim of his sombrero, as, with the rope still on his shoulders, he whirled his horse round again with his smoking revolver leveled at Halliday. "Whoo-oo-oo-ee-ee!" Ellhorn's long-drawn-out yell came floating down from the top of the hill and close on its heels the report of a pistol. "That was a very pretty trick, Emerson," said the foreman, in a voice which tried hard to sound unconcerned, "even if it was my man you played it on." "It will be played on you if you make another break," Mead replied in an even tone, with his revolver still leveled at Halliday. He turned his horse slightly so that a sidewise glance up the hill showed Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, guns in hand, both astride one horse, coming toward them on a gallop. Tuttle's deep-lunged voice bellowed down the slope: "We're a-comin', Emerson! Hold 'em off! We're a-comin'!" and another pistol ball sung through the rain and dropped beside Halliday's horse. Mead flung the rope from his shoulders and grinned at Halliday and his party. "Well, what are you going to do now? Do you want to fight?" Halliday put his gun in its holster: "I don't want any pitched battle over this business. We'll call the game off for this morning." "It's all right, boys," Mead yelled to his friends. "Don't shoot any more." "You're a fool, Emerson," Halliday went on, "or you'd give yourself up, go down to Plumas and clear yourself,--if you can--and have this thing over with. For we're goin' to get you yet, somehow." Antone Colorow spurred his horse close to Mead and with all the varied and virulent execration of which the cow-boy is capable shouted at him: "Yes, and if they don't get you, I will! I come after you till I get you, and I come a-smoking every time! You won't need a trial after I get through with you! You've done me up, but I'll get even and more too!"