“Got to hang onto the remains, anyhow, for Miss Helen. Those coyotes are too much of the wolf breed to leave him with them.” “Looks like they’re gittin’ the aim some better,” equably remarked the other a minute later, when a spurt of sand flew up in front of him. “They’re ce’tainly crowding us. I expaict I better send them a ‘How-de-do?’ so as to discourage them a few.” He took as careful aim as he could on the galloping horse, but his bullet went wide. “They’re gaining like sixty. It’s my offhand opinion we better stop at that bunch of trees and argue some with them. No use buck-jumpin’ along to burn the wind while they drill streaks of light through us.” “All right. Take the trees. Y’u’ll be able to get into the game some then.” They debouched from the road to the little grove and slipped from their horses. “Deader’n hell,” murmured Missou, as he lifted the limp body from his horse. “But I guess we’ll pack what’s left back to the little lady at the Lazy D.” The leader of the pursuers halted his men just out of range and came forward alone, holding his right hand up in the usual signal of peace. In appearance he was not unlike Ned Bannister. There was the same long, slim, tiger build, with the flowing muscles rippling easily beneath the loose shirt; the same effect of power and dominance, the same clean, springy stride. The pose of the head, too, even the sweep of salient jaw, bore a marked resemblance. But similarity ceased at the expression. For instead of frankness there lurked here that hint of the devil of strong passion uncontrolled. He was the victim of his own moods, and in the space of an hour one might, perhaps, read in that face cold cunning, cruel malignity, leering ribaldry, as well as the hard-bitten virtues of unflinching courage and implacable purpose. “I reckon you’re near enough,” suggested Mac, when the man had approached to within a hundred feet of the tree clump. “_Y’u’re_ drawing the dead-line,” the other acknowledged, indolently. “It won’t take ten words to tell y’u what I want and mean to have. I’m giving y’u two minutes to hand me over the body of Ned Bannister. If y’u don’t see it that way I’ll come and make a lead mine of your whole outfit.” “Y’u can’t come too quick, seh. We’re here a-shootin’, and don’t y’u forget it,” was McWilliams’s prompt answer. The sinister face of the man from the Shoshones darkened. “Y’u’ve signed your own death warrants,” he let out through set teeth, and at the word swung on his heel. “The ball’s about to open. Pardners for a waltz. Have a dust-cutter, Mac, before she grows warm.” The puncher handed over his flask, and the other held it before his eye and appraised the contents in approved fashion. “Don’t mind if I do. Here’s how!” “How!” echoed Missou, in turn, and tipped up the bottle till the liquor gurgled down his baked throat. “He’s fanning out his men so as to, get us both at the front and back door. Lucky there ain’t but four of them.”