, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born
leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.

"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive,
he's ours." He gave crisp orders.

"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.

For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded
man had whipped up a rifle and fired.

Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too
many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail.
You see, it's loaded with buckshot."

One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such
audacity as this was new to him.

"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned
amusing," growled his leader.

"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful
guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."

"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets
through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice,
just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the
other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get
him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."

"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row
about?" the cornered man wanted to know.

"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you
didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make
your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."

"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a
stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"

"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.

"Douglas."

"What doing here?"

"Homesteading."

"Name?"

"Keller."

"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to
shoot me. That's what you are."

"No."

"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of
us. If you're not the man, where is he?"

"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."

"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."

"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so
as to know him."

"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.

"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.

"Well, then?"

"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rust