d a
little after shaking hands with his host, trying the violin case as if
to see that it was secure, and fidgeting in his saddle, and holding
back on the start. Macdonald could see that there was something unsaid
in the little man's mind which gave him an uneasiness, like
indigestion.

"What is it, Banjo?" he asked, to let it be known that he understood.

"Mac, did you ever hear tell of a feller named Mark Thorn?" Banjo
inquired, looking about him with fearful caution, lowering his voice
almost to a whisper.

"Yes, I've heard of him."

"Well, he's in this country."

"Are you sure about that, Banjo?" Macdonald's face was troubled; he
moved nearer the musician as he made the inquiry, and laid his hand on
his arm.

"He's here. He's the feller you've got to watch out for. He cut
acrosst the road yisterday afternoon when I was comin' down here, and
when he seen me he stopped, for I used to know him up north and he
knew it wasn't no use to try to duck and hide his murderin' face from
me. He told me he was ranchin' up in Montany, and he'd come down here
to collect some money Chadron owed him on an old bill."

"Pretty slim kind of a story. But he's here to collect money from
Chadron, all right, and give him value received. What kind of a
looking man is he?"

"He's long and lean, like a rail, with a kind of a bend in him when he
walks, and the under lid of his left eye drawed like you'd pulled it
down and stuck a tack in it. He's wearin' a cap, and he's kind of
whiskered up, like he'd been layin' out some time."

"I'd know him," Macdonald nodded.

"You couldn't miss him in a thousand, Mac. Well, I must be rackin'
along."

Banjo scarcely had passed out of sight when three horsemen came
galloping to Macdonald's gate. They brought news of a fresh tragedy,
and that in the immediate neighborhood. A boy had been shot down that
morning while doing chores on a homestead a little way across the
river. He was the son of one of the men on the death-list, and these
men, the father among them, had come to enlist Macdonald's aid in
running down the slayer.

The boy's mother had seen the assassin hastening away among the scant
bushes on the slope above the house. The description that she gave of
him left no doubt in Macdonald's mind of his identity. It was Mark
Thorn, the cattlemen's contract killer, the homesteaders' scourge.

It was a fruitless search that day, seeking old Mark Thorn among the
hills which rose brokenly a