e
set his rifle against the rock, listened carefully, as always, felt
down at his feet for the few chips of rock he had so placed that they
would be disturbed if trodden by an enemy, listened again carefully,
and with his revolver cocked in his right hand, and the muzzle lying
across his left forearm, Laramie slowly zigzagged his way to the
inside. Once there, he stood perfectly still in the darkness and
called a greeting to Hawk. He failed to receive the usual gruff
answer. This never before had happened, and without trying for a
light, Laramie moved slowly and with much caution over to the recess
within which Hawk lay. There he could hear the cowboy's labored, but
regular breathing as he slept. The storm, waking the water crevices of
the mountains into a noisy chorus, had lulled the hunted man into an
untroubled sleep.

Laramie shook his oilskins in a heap on the floor, cautiously lighted a
candle and set it on the board that served as a table. In spite of his
slickers he was wet through. He hung his hat on the end of a broken
timber and laid his revolver beside the candle. Bethinking himself,
however, of his rifle, he picked up the six-shooter again, stepped
outside the entrance, brought in his rifle, wiped it, stood it in a
convenient corner and turned toward Hawk.

The candle, burning at moments steadily and at moments flickering,
threw its uncertain rays into the recess where the wounded rustler lay.
They lighted the sallow pallor of the sleeping man's face, fell across
his sunken eyes and drew the black of his long beard out of the gloom
below it. Laramie seated himself on a projecting ledge and looked
thoughtfully at his charge. He was failing; of that there could be no
doubt. Steel-willed and hard-sinewed though he was, the wounds that
would long ago have put an ordinary man out of action, were undermining
his great vitality and Laramie, in a study, felt it.

Yet such was the younger man's natural stubbornness that left to his
own devices he would have fought out the battle against death right
where the failing man lay; only the judgment of Lefever and Carpy
swayed him in the circumstances.

Believing sleep was the best preparative for the ordeal of the ride to
town, Laramie hesitated about waking Hawk--yet the hours were precious,
for the trip would be long and slow. Fortunately he had not long to
wait before Hawk woke.

Laramie was sitting a few feet away and silently looking at him when
Ha