lump of young cottonwoods and tied it safely. From its place beside
the saddle he took the muley gun and with the rifle in his other hand he
limped swiftly back to the trail. Every step was torture, but he could
not stop to think of that now. His quick eye picked a perfect spot for an
ambush where a great rock leaned against another at the edge of the
bluff. Between the two was a narrow opening through which he could
command the bend in the trail below. To enlarge this he scooped out the
dirt with his fingers then reloaded the rifle and thrust it into the
crevice. The sawed-off shotgun lay close to his hand.

Till now he had found no time to get nervous, but as the minutes passed
he began to tremble violently and to whimper. In spite of his experience
he was only a boy and until to-day had never killed a man.

"Doggone it, if I ain't done gone an' got buck fever," he reproached
himself. "I reckon it's because Billie Prince ain't here that I'm so
scairt. I wisht I had a drink, so as I'd be right when the old muley gun
gits to barkin'."

A faint sound, almost indistinguishable, echoed up the gulch to him.
Miraculously his nervousness vanished. Every nerve was keyed up, every
muscle tense, but he was cool as water in a mountain stream.

The sound repeated itself, a faint tinkle of gravel rolling from a trail
beneath the hoof of a horse. At the last moment Thursday changed his mind
and substituted the shotgun for the rifle.

"Old muley she spatters all over the State of Texas. I might git two at
once," he muttered.

The light, distant murmur of voices reached him. His trained ear told him
just how far away the speakers were.

An Apache rounded the bend, a tall, slender young brave wearing only a
low-cut breech-cloth and a pair of moccasins. Around his waist was
strapped a belt full of cartridges and from it projected the handle of a
long Mexican knife. The brown body of the youth was lithe and graceful as
that of a panther. He was smiling over his shoulder at the next rider in
line, a heavy-set, squat figure on a round-bellied pinto. That smile was
to go out presently like the flame of a blown candle. A third Mescalero
followed. Like that of the others, his coarse, black hair fell to the
shoulders, free except for a band that encircled the forehead.

Still the boy did not fire. He waited till the last of the party
appeared, a man in fringed buckskin breeches and hickory shirt riding
pillion behind a young woman. Bot