tion of Goodell. His heavy face settled into
stubborn lines. He blinked under MacRae's steady look. Of a sudden he
sprang to his feet. I do not know what his intention may have been, but
he got little chance to carry out any desperate idea that took form in
his brain, for MacRae knocked him back on his haunches with a single
blow of his fist.

"Answer me," he shouted, "or by the Lord! I'll make you think hell is a
pleasure-garden compared to this sand-bar."

"Kick a few uh his ribs out uh place for a starter," Piegan coolly
advised. "That'll he'p him remember things."

Yet for all their threats Hicks obstinately refused to admit that he had
ever seen Lyn Rowan. What his object was in denying knowledge we knew he
possessed did not transpire till later. He knew the game was lost, so
far as he was concerned, and he was mustering his forces in a last
effort to save himself. And MacRae's patience snapped like a frayed
thread before many minutes of futile query.

"Get me a rope off one of those pack-horses, Sarge," he snapped.

I brought the rope; and I will brazenly admit that I should not have
balked at helping decorate the limb of a cottonwood with those two
red-handed scoundrels. But I was not prepared for the turn MacRae took.
Hicks evidently felt that there was something ominous to the fore, for
he fought like a fiend when we endeavored to apply the rope to his arms
and legs. There was an almost superhuman desperation in his resistance,
and while MacRae and I hammered and choked him into submission Piegan
gyrated about us with a gun in his left hand, begging us to let _him_
put the finishing touches to Hicks. That, however, was the very
antithesis of MacRae's purpose.

"I don't want to _kill_ him, Piegan," he said pointedly, when Hicks was
securely tied. "If I had, do you suppose I'd dirty my hands on him in
that sort of a scramble when I know how to use a gun? I want him to
talk--you understand?--and he _will_ talk before I'm through with him."

There was a peculiar inflection about that last sentence, a world of
meaning that was lost on me until I saw Mac go to the brush a few yards
distant, return with an armful of dry willows and place them on the sand
close by Hicks. Without audible comment I watched him, but I was
puzzled--at first. He broke the dry sticks into fragments across his
knee; when he had a fair-sized pile he took out his knife and whittled a
few shavings. Not till he snapped his knife shut and p