r the
overhang took breath, put down his rifle, whipped out his revolver,
looked toward the top of his well and listened.

Not a sound broke the stillness of the sunny morning. With his right
hand, but holding his eyes and ears very much at attention, he drew a
handkerchief, wiped the dust from his eyes and face and twisted his
head around to investigate the stinging sensation high on his left
shoulder, almost at the neck. The rifle bullet had torn his coat
collar and shirt and creased the skin. He could feel no blood and soon
inventoried the shot as only close. But he was waiting for the man
that fired it to appear at the hole to investigate; and with at least
this one of his enemies he was in a mood to finish then and there.

Taking off his coat, as his wits continued to work, he spread it over a
little hump in front of him so it would catch the eye for an instant
and with patient rage crouched back under the overhang. He so placed
himself that one could hardly see him without peering into the hole and
that might mean any one of several things for the man that ventured
it--much depended, in Laramie's mind, on whose face he should see above
the rim.

An interminable time passed. The first sound he heard was that of
horses toiling up the long grade and the creaking of battered hubs;
this he reckoned must be McAlpin with the stage. Where his hat had
rolled to, when he tumbled out of the saddle to simulate death, he had
no idea. If it lay in the road he might expect a visit from McAlpin.
But without stopping, the stage rattled slowly up the grade.

It seemed then as if the distant gunman, after waiting for the stage to
pass, would not fail to reconnoiter the hole. Yet he did so fail. The
high hours of midday passed with Laramie patiently resting his Colt's
up between his knees and studying the yellow rim of the hole and the
heavenly blue of the sky. His neck ached from the cramped position,
long held, in which he had placed himself; but he moved no more than if
he had been set in stone. Neither hunger, which was slight, nor
thirst, at times troublesome, disturbed his watch. But it was in vain.

He sat like a spider in its web through the whole day without an
incident. A few horsemen passed, an occasional wagon rumbled up and
down the hill; but none of the travelers looked in on Laramie. Toward
dusk he heard a freighting outfit working laboriously up from the
creek. Resolving to give up his watch and g