ped into a bigger game than you
thought, Sautee, an' it's got plumb out of your hands."

He turned on the mine manager fiercely. "Whatever happens, remember
this: Once a man gets a bad reputation in a country like this or the
country I come from, he's got it for keeps. He can't get away from it
no matter how he acts or what he does. Mine has drove me away from the
place where I belong; it's followed me here; I can't lose it; an' the
way things has been going, by glory, I don't know if I _want_ to lose
it!"

Sautee cowered back under the fierceness in Rathburn's manner.

"An' you can tell 'em, if you ever have a chance to talk again, that I
earned my reputation square! I ain't involved nobody else, an' I ain't
stole from any poor people, an' I never threw my gun down on a man who
didn't start for his first."

The deadly earnestness and the note of regret in Rathburn's tone
caused Sautee to forget his uneasiness temporarily and stare at the
man in wonder. Rathburn's eyes were narrowed, his gaze was steel blue,
and his face was drawn into hard, grim lines as he looked out upon the
far-flung, glorious vista below them, broken here and there by the
movement of mounted men.

"Maybe I--I----" Sautee faltered in his speech. His words seemed
impotent in the face of Rathburn's deadly seriousness.

Rathburn turned abruptly to the powder house door.

"Wait!" cried Sautee.

The mines manager dug frantically into his pockets and drew out a
bunch of keys.

"There are some locks on this property to which there are only two
keys," he explained nervously. "This is one of them, and I carry the
second key. Here!"

He held out the key ring with one key extended.

Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In a
moment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door,
exposing case after case of high explosive within the stone
structure.

Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension.

Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above
them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail.

"That looks to me like the man that held me up last night," said
Rathburn. "He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he's found out
he didn't get much, eh? Maybe he's coming back because he didn't have
enough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossed
or something."

Sautee's features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenly
he turned on Rathbu