Big John raised his rifle carefully, its tall front sight rising high above the rear bar. “Four hundred, five hundred; no, more’n six hundred yards!” he muttered. “It’ll be some stretch for the ole meat gun, but, greaser, you’ve looked at this parteekler scenery all you’re entitled to!” He held the bead steady, resting his elbow on a rock. Gradually his muscles cramped in a rigid pose while the tiny dot up there in the crags hovered motionless over the tip of his front sight. “Sho! greaser,” said Big John, lowering the rifle. “Y’ain’t done nawthin’ yit what I orter kill ye fer! Yore int’rested, jist now--it’s our chanct to make a run for it an’ git between you an’ th’ home plate, I’m thinkin’. Siddy boy, I aims to reach ye this trip!” He crept rapidly down to where Niltci lay concealed and touched him on the shoulder. Together they wormed swiftly down the mountain and reached the sands. Here the high flanks concealed them from the view of those above. After one sharp glance around by Niltci, both ran at full speed along the base. Up and up at a gentle slant for some half a mile the sand drift led them, until they had arrived at the foot of the lava flow where it dipped down below the sands. Along its vitrified surface they sped--and then Big John stopped and gripped Niltci’s arm, breathing heavily. Above them on the lava slope an apparition had appeared. A man crouched in a sort of cave mouth up there, and he bore a rifle in his hands. He waved energetically to Big John to get under cover at once. “Ef that ain’t Sid you can call me a tin-horn gent!” gasped Big John. “_Whoopee, Sid!_ Keep down!--_Look out_, watch yourself!” he yelled out alarmedly. His outcry was fatal. A rifle whanged out up in the cliffs above and instantly came the sharp thud of a bullet. Big John coughed, groaned in the inflectionless cry of the unconscious, and tumbled in a heap on the rocks. Niltci gave one swift glance upward at the man in the serapé who had fired, then grabbed Big John and dragged his huge shape under the shelter of a crag. Sid had disappeared as if struck flat, but the whip of his army carbine rang out sharply. A volley of shots replied, coming from all over the hillside. Bullets struck the lava apron and went whining off into space; more of them plunged down around Niltci’s position.