angrily.

"Who is it?" demanded Doubleday.

"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you
doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel.

John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly
intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the
second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?"

This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn
was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from
the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute."

"Just a friendly call," assented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he
shouted, "and how many of you are there?"

Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You
know most everybody here."

"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked
Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of
the delicacy of his position should shooting begin.

There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look
here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the hell's all this
fuss about?"

"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When
I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost
your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen
you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber,
I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the
cattle ticket."

Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders
realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn
was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and
sharp.

"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a
bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look
anywhere else!"

"These boys won't stand any more fooling," roared Doubleday.

"I wouldn't either, Barb, if you'd got me into this scrape as deep as
you've got them," was the retort.

Nothing less than violent outbursts of profanity served now. And these
proceeding to a climax of strength and rapidity, gradually subsided as
such outbursts do and the two sides started to argue all over again.

After much parley and protestations of peaceful intent, provided they
were treated fair, Doubleday and Van Horn were allowed to ride up to
the rock, but not to dismount. "Now," suggested Lefever to the two,
"talk j