its light danced out in widening circles, touching at
last the spot where Howard stood, where Ed True and Monte Devine lay.

'Well, Bettins?' called Howard abruptly.

'What about you? Are you coming over?'

Bettins was silent a moment. The light flickered on the gun in his
hand. Presently he raised his voice to inquire anxiously:

'Hurt much, Monte? And you, True?'

No answer from Monte. True shrieked at him: 'Come, over and plug him,
Bettins. For God's sake, plug the damn cowman.'

Still Bettins hesitated.

'Monte dead?' he demanded.

'How the hell do I know?' complained True.

'Come, plug him, Bettins.'

This time Bettins' reply was lost in a sudden shout of voices rising
from the lower end of the flat. The vague forms of several horsemen
appeared; there came the thunderous beat of flying hoofs. Howard's
lips grew tight-pressed. True lifted himself on his elbow.

'It's Jim coming back!' he called triumphantly.

'This way, Jim!'

But the answering shout, closer now, was unmistakably the voice of
Yellow Barbee. And with him rode half a dozen men and, among them a
girl.

Chapter XVIII

A Town is Born

The fire, spreading and burning brightly now, shone on the faces making
a ring about Alan Howard and the two men lying on the ground. With
Yellow Barbee had come John Carr, Longstreet and Helen, and two of the
Desert Valley men, Chuck Evans and Dave Terril. They looked swiftly
from Howard to the two men whom he had shot, then curiously at Howard
again.

'Jim Courtot, Al?' asked Carr, for Monte Devine's face was in shadow.

Howard shook his head.

'No such luck, John,' he said briefly. 'Just Monte Devine and Ed True.
Bettins is over yonder; he didn't mix in.'

'I hope,' said Longstreet nervously, 'that you haven't started any
trouble on my account.'

'No trouble at all,' said Howard dryly. Yellow Barbee laughed and went
to look at Devine. Ed True was still cursing where he had propped
himself up with his back to a rock.

'This is apt to be bad business, Al.' It was John Carr speaking
heavily, his voice unusually blunt and harsh. 'I saw Pony Lee, and he
told me that Longstreet here hasn't a leg to stand on. Devine filed on
the claim; he and his men got here ahead of us; neither Miss Helen nor
I nor any one but you can go into court and swear that Longstreet ever
so much as said that he had made a find. I was hoping we would get
here before you started anything.'

Howard looke