" interrupted Doubleday huskily and baring his teeth
as he spoke.

"Stone's watching the place."

"Is Abe there?" demanded Doubleday.

"You tell," responded Van Horn. "He may or may not be. That horse may
be a stall. We've got to close in somehow on the shack and find out."

A cowboy clattered up from the creek and pulled his horse to its
haunches between Doubleday and Van Horn: "He's just closed the door,"
declared the cowboy. "The door was open when we got here--wasn't it,
Harry?" He pointed his finger at Van Horn in his excited appeal.

Van Horn scowled and waved his head from side to side in irritation:
"The door was open, yes; the door is shut, yes." Then he swore at the
alarmist: "You blamed monkey," he pointed to the cottonwood. "Don't
you see how the wind is blowing? That door has been swinging half an
hour. The shack is empty."

But nobody could be found with confidence enough in Van Horn's belief
to close in and demonstrate its truth. After a litany of hard words in
which everybody took more or less part, Van Horn declared he would
demonstrate. Whatever his faults, he was dead game, a formidable
antagonist in an encounter. He was risking his life on his belief that
either Hawk was disabled, or the cabin was empty. Stripping himself to
shirt and trousers, turning his effects over to a cowboy, bare-headed
and with only a six-shooter in hand, he shook out his long, brown hair,
hooked up his belt and started to crawl up a little wash breaking into
the creek not far from the cabin.

There was no point from which he could be seen and his companions,
secreted where they could watch, bent their eyes along the course of
the wash up which their hidden leader was making his way.

Fortunately for the slippery undertaking, Van Horn, by a little digging
as he made his way carefully ahead, was able to crawl to within fifty
feet of the door without exposing himself to fire. Reaching the
nearest spot he could attain with safety, he called in stentorian tones
to the cabin:

"You're surrounded, Abe. You can't get away. If you want to
surrender, I'll guarantee your life. Come out unarmed and I'll meet
you unarmed. If not, it's what Gorman and Dutch Henry got, for you,
Abe."

The cabin gave no answer back. But Van Horn would not be baffled.
Knowing it would be suicide to venture closer he patiently sought his
answer on the ground he now began to cover on his way back to the
creek. And on the ground