dn't take his eyes from Neal's as he brought it out and inserted it
in the lock. His right hand continued to hang above the gun he had
taken from the jailer.

"Sheriff," he said with a cold ring in his voice, "this may seem like
an insult, but I'm goin' to ask you to unlock that cage and go in. You
can take your time if you want, but I warn you fair that if any one
should start coming up the steps outside I'll try to smoke you up."

For answer Neal, with the glitter still in his eyes, stepped to the
cage door, unlocked it, and swung it open.

He took a step, whirled like a flash--and the deafening report of guns
crashed and reverberated within the jail's walls.

Neal staggered back within the cage, his gun clattering to the floor,
his right hand dropping to his side.

"If I hadn't been up against a strange gun I wouldn't have hit your
finger, sheriff," said Rathburn mockingly. "I was shootin' at your
gun."

He shut the cage door quickly, locked it, and stuck the key in his
pocket. Then he threw the jailer's gun in through the bars and thrust
his own weapon in its holster.

"I want you gentlemen inside, an' armed," he said laughingly. "If the
jailer will be so good as to read what's written on the paper on the
bench, he'll learn something to his advantage. Sheriff, you an' Brown
were wrong in this, but the devil of it is you'll never know why."

He left Neal pondering this cryptic sally, ran to the front door,
opened it, and disappeared.

Neal clutched his injured fingers and swore freely, although there was
amazement in his eyes. He could have been killed like a rat in a trap
if The Coyote had felt the whim.

The man from the desert stepped to the bench and read on the sheet of
paper:

If anybody ever gets to read this they will know that what I said
about learning to throw a knife is true. I can do it. I've carried
that knife in a special case that would fit in my sock and boot for
just such an emergency as came up to-night. But I never would have
throwed it. It would be against my ethics.

The man from the desert swore softly. Then he hurriedly picked up his
gun and fired five shots to attract attention.

CHAPTER XIII

A MAN AND HIS HORSE

When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down the
steps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showed
in the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beams
streaming from the windows of the resort up the street