Walk towards the horses."

Sorenson cast one bitter glance at the thicket in the ravine; by only
the little matter of a few yards he had failed to gain liberty. For
Weir his visage when he looked around again was never more hard,
hostile, full of undying hatred. Though balked, he was not submissive,
and was the kind who kept his animosity to the end. Then he started
off towards the horses, his own which had staggered to its feet again
and Weir's, both standing with hanging heads and heaving, quivering
sides.

All at once the cattleman halted and faced about.

"Most men have a price, and I suppose you have yours," he said, with
forced calmness. "I'm ready to pay it."

"You're going to pay it," was the answer.

"How much will you ask to let me go?"

"If you offered me ten million, which you haven't got, I wouldn't
accept it," Weir said, harshly. "There isn't enough money in the world
to buy your liberty. You're going back to San Mateo, and from there to
the penitentiary or to the gallows, one or the other."

"It will be neither," Sorenson stated.

"You're mistaken, but I shall not argue the matter with you. Keep
walking towards the horses."

Sorenson's lips became compressed. He glanced down at his bleeding
hand, shook the blood from his fingers.

"I stay here," said he.

Weir went a step nearer and thrust his face forward, jaw set, eyes
smoldering.

"Go on, I say," he exclaimed.

But the other did not retreat before him or indeed move at all. A
sneer lifted his gray mustache.

"You have a gun; you're a killer; here I am unarmed and in your
power," he said. "You intend to take me in; I propose to stay here. If
I go to San Mateo, it will be as a dead man. I'll see whether you have
the nerve to shoot me down where I now stand. If you have, go to it.
You can then take my body to town, but I'll not have paid the price
you name and I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I beat you at the
last--in that, at least. Your bragging will be empty. Start your
shooting any time you please." The tone spoke complete contempt.

Weir said nothing. The defiance, the supreme audacity of this
assertion, coming so unexpectedly, surprised him and left him at a
loss. He would not kill an unresisting man, even Sorenson, his worst
enemy. Sorenson in his place probably would not have hesitated to do
so, for he had no fine scruples in such matters; but for Steele Weir
the thing was no more possible than striking a woman or a child