His voice shook. When he tried to eat, his fingers could scarcely hold
a knife and fork. Supper was for him a sham. A steel band seemed to
grip his throat and make the swallowing of food impossible. He was as
unnerved as a condemned criminal waiting for the noose.

After drinking a cup of coffee, he pushed back his chair and rose.

"Petter stay with us," urged the old German. He did not know why this
young man was in danger, but he read in the face the stark fear of a
soul in travail.

"No. I'll saddle and go down to see Rutherford. Good-night."

Roy went out of the back door and crept along the shadows of the hill.
Beneath his foot a dry twig snapped. It was enough. He fled
panic-stricken, pursued by all the demons of hell his fears could
evoke. A deadly, unnerving terror clutched at his throat. The
pounding blood seemed ready to burst the veins at his temples.

The bunkhouse loomed before him in the darkness. As he plunged at the
door a shot rang out. A bolt of fire burned into his shoulder. He
flung the door open, slammed it shut behind him, locked and bolted it
almost with one motion. For a moment he leaned half swooning against
the jamb, sick through and through at the peril he had just escaped.

But had he escaped it? Would they not break in on him and drag him out
to death? The acuteness of his fright drove away the faintness. He
dragged the bed from its place and pushed it against the door. Upon it
he piled the table, the washstand, the chairs. Feverishly he worked to
barricade the entrance against his enemies.

When he had finished, his heart was beating against his ribs like that
of a wild rabbit in the hands of a boy. He looked around for the
safest place to hide. From the floor he stripped a Navajo rug and
pulled up the trapdoor that led to a small cellar stairway. Down into
this cave he went, letting the door fall shut after him.

In that dark blackness he waited, a crumpled, trembling wretch, for
whatever fate might have in store for him.

How long he crouched there Beaudry never knew. At last reason asserted
itself and fought back the panic. To stay where he was would be to
invite destruction. His attackers would come to the window. The
barricaded door, the displaced rug, the trapdoor, would advertise his
terror. The outlaws would break in and make an end of him.

Roy could hardly drag his feet up the stairs, so near was he to
physical collapse. He listened. No