iders, each with a rifle across his arm, were hurrying over the
mountain trail.

In the blackness which lay along the upper river Hampton gave his horse
a free rein and let it follow at Tommy's heels. The roar of the
lashing water, the pounding of shod hoofs, the whining creak of
saddle-leather were the only sounds coming to them out of the night.
When, finally, they drew rein under the cliffs at the lake's edge all
was silent save for the faint distant booming of the river below them.

"Now which way?" whispered Hampton, his voice eloquent of suppressed
excitement and eagerness.

Tommy was shaking his head in uncertainty when suddenly from above
there came to them the sharp report of a rifle. Then, like a bundle at
firecrackers, a volley of half a dozen staccato shots.

"Listen to that, Burkitt," muttered Hampton. "They're at it now--we're
on time----"

Tommy slipped from the saddle wordlessly, came to Hampton's side and
tugged gently at his leg, whispering for him to get down. Leaving
their horses there, they slipped into the utter darkness of the narrow
chasm in the rocks which gave access to the plateau above.

"Now," cautioned Tommy guardedly, as they came to the top, "keep close
to me if you don't want to take a header about a thousan' feet. Look!"
He nudged Hampton and pointed. "There are two horses across yonder;
Bud's an' Miss Judy's, most likely."

Hampton did not see them, did not seek to see them. Something new,
vital, big, had swept suddenly into his life. He was at grips
first-hand with unmasked, pulsing forces. A tremor went through him
and he was not ashamed of it; for it was not the quaking of fear, but
the thrill in the blood of a man who, plucked from a round of social
artificialities, finds himself with the smell of burnt powder in his
nostrils and who feels a swift eagerness for what may lie just yonder
waiting for him. "They're at it now!" he whispered to Burkitt.
Men--yes, and a girl--were shooting, not at just wooden and paper
targets, but at other men! At men who shot back, and shot to kill.

"Listen," said Burkitt. "Somebody's in the old cabin; somebody's
outside. Which is which? We got to be awful careful."

They began a slow, cautious approach, slipping from bush to bush, from
tree to tree, standing motionless now and then to frown into the folds
of the night's curtains. Abruptly the firing ceased. They made out
vaguely the two forms of the attackers, having located