"

"How long ago?"

"Not a hell of a while. Mebbe fifteen or twenty minutes. I been missin' a
lot of time, I reckon. Can't have been long, though."

"Which way did they go?"

"Off towards Manti. Two of 'em took him. The rest is layin' low somewhere,
most likely. Watch out they don't get _you_! I ain't seen 'em run off,
yet!"

"How did it happen?"

"I ain't got it clear in my head, yet. Just happened, I reckon. The Judge
was settin' on the ledge just in front of the dobie house you had him in.
I was moseyin' along the edge, tryin' to figger out what a light in the
sky off towards Manti meant. I couldn't figger it out--what in hell was
it, anyway?"

"The courthouse burned--maybe the bank."

Levins chuckled. "You got the record, then."

"Yes."

"An' I've lost the Judge! Ain't I a box-head, though!"

"That's all right. Go ahead. What happened?"

"I was moseyin along the ledge. Just when I got to the slope where we come
up--passin' it--I seen a bunch of guys, on horses, coming out of the
shadow of an angle, down there. I hadn't seen 'em before. I knowed
somethin' was up an' I turned, to light out for shelter. An' just then one
of 'em burns me in the back--with a rifle bullet. It couldn't have been no
six, from that distance. It took the starch out of me, an' I caved, I
reckon, for a little while. When I woke up the Judge was gone. The moon
had just come up an' I seen him ridin' away on my cayuse, between two
other guys. I reckon I must have gone off again, when you shook me." He
laughed, weakly. "What gets _me_, is where them other guys went, after the
two sloped with the Judge. If they'd have been hangin' around they'd sure
have got _you_, comin' up here, wouldn't they?"

Trevison's answer was a hoarse exclamation. He swung Levins up and bore
him into one of the communal houses, whose opening faced away from the
plains and the activity. Then he ran to where he had left Nigger, leading
the animal back into the zig-zag passages, pulling his rifle out of the
saddle holster and stationing himself in the shadow of the house in which
he had taken Levins.

"They've come back, eh?" the wounded man's voice floated out to him.

"Yes--five or six of them. No--eight! They've got sharp eyes, too!" he
added stepping back as a rifle bullet droned over his head, chipping a
chunk of adobe from the roof of the box in whose shelter he stood.

* * * * *

Sullenly, Corrigan had re