rom a chimney, rolling over and over in billowy masses. The
banks on either hand were almost invisible. We knew that our time of
waiting was short. The popping of dry, scrubby timber warned us that our
position would soon be untenable. The infernal vapors from the unholy
mixture of green and dry grass, berry bushes, willow scrub, and the
ubiquitous sage, made breathing a misery and brought unwilling tears to
our stinging eyes. And presently, above the subdued but menacing noises
of the fire, the beat of galloping hoofs uprose.

They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind,
heading for the protection of the river. The pack-horses, necked
together, galloped in the lead, and behind them Hicks, Gregory, and
Bevans leaned over the necks of their mounts. They knew that we were
waiting for them, but at the worst they had a fighting chance with us,
and none with what came behind. So thick hung the smoky veil that they
were right on top of us before they took tangible shape; and when we
rose to our knees and fired, the crack of their guns mingled with that
of our own. Gregory, so near that I could see every feature of his dark
face, the glittering black eyes, the wide mouth parted over white, even
teeth, wilted in his saddle as they swept by. Bevans and his horse went
down together. But Hicks the wily, a superb horseman, hung in his off
stirrup and swerved away from us, and the smoke closed behind him to the
tune of our guns.

It was done in less time than it has taken to tell of it. There was no
prolonged hand-to-hand struggle with buckets of blood marring the
surrounding scenery, and a beautiful heroine wringing her hands in
despair; merely a rush of horses and men out of the smoke, a brief spasm
of gun-fire--it was begun and ended in five seconds. But there were two
fallen men, and Piegan Smith with a hole through the big muscle of his
right arm, to show that we had fought.

The pack-horses, with no riders at their heels to guide them, had
tangled each other in the connecting-rope and stopped. Hicks was gone,
and likely to keep going. So we turned our attention to Gregory and
Bevans. Gregory was dead as the proverbial door-nail, but Bevans, on
investigation, proved to be very much alive--so much so that if he had
not been partly stunned by the fall, and thereafter pinned to the ground
by a thousand-pound horse, he would have potted one or two of us with a
good heart. As it was, we reached the gentle