t Naab's gloomy face worked, and his eagle-gaze had in it a
strange far-seeing light; his mind was dwelling upon his mystic power of
revelation.

"I see--I see," he said haltingly.

"Ki--yi-i-i!" yelled Dave Naab with all the power of his lungs. His head
was back, his mouth wide open, his face red, his neck corded and swollen
with the intensity of his passion.

"Be still--boy!" ordered his father. "Hare, this was madness--but tell
me what you learned."

Briefly Hare repeated all that he had been told at the Bishop's, and
concluded with the killing of Martin Cole by Dene.

August Naab bowed his head and his giant frame shook under the force of
his emotion. Martin Cole was the last of his life-long friends.

"This--this outlaw--you say you ran him down?" asked Naab, rising
haggard and shaken out of his grief.

"Yes. He didn't recognize me or know what was coming till Silvermane was
on him. But he was quick, and fell sidewise. Silvermane's knee sent him
sprawling."

"What will it all lead to?" asked August Naab, and in his extremity he
appealed to his eldest son.

"The bars are down," said Snap Naab, with a click of his long teeth.

"Father," began Dave Naab earnestly, "Jack has done a splendid thing.
The news will fly over Utah like wildfire. Mormons are slow. They need a
leader. But they can follow and they will. We can't cure these evils by
hoping and praying. We've got to fight!"

"Dave's right, dad, it means fight," cried George, with his fist
clinched high.

"You've been wrong, father, in holding back," said Zeke Naab, his lean
jaw bulging. "This Holderness will steal the water and meat out of our
children's mouths. We've got to fight!"

"Let's ride to White Sage," put in Snap Naab, and the little flecks
in his eyes were dancing. "I'll throw a gun on Dene. I can get to him.
We've been tolerable friends. He's wanted me to join his band. I'll kill
him."

He laughed as he raised his right hand and swept it down to his left
side; the blue Colt lay on his outstretched palm. Dene's life and
Holderness's, too, hung in the balance between two deadly snaps of this
desert-wolf's teeth. He was one of the Naabs, and yet apart from them,
for neither religion, nor friendship, nor life itself mattered to him.

August Naab's huge bulk shook again, not this time with grief, but
in wrestling effort to withstand the fiery influence of this unholy
fighting spirit among his sons.

"I am forbidden."

His answer was