ed John Caldwell's enigmatic face.

"Have the rustlers really come?" asked a young woman, whose eyes were
red and cheeks tear-stained.

"They have. Nineteen in all. I counted them," answered Hare.

The young woman burst out weeping afresh, and the wailing of the others
answered her. Hare left the cottage. He picked up his rifle and went
down through the orchard to the hiding-place of the horses. Silvermane
pranced and snorted his gladness at sight of his master. The desert king
was fit for a grueling race. Black Bolly quietly cropped the long grass.
Hare saddled the stallion to have him in instant readiness, and then
returned to the front of the yard.

He heard the sound of a gun down the road, then another, and several
shots following in quick succession. A distant angry murmuring and
trampling of many feet drew Hare to the gate. Riderless mustangs were
galloping down the road; several frightened boys were fleeing across the
square; not a man was in sight. Three more shots cracked, and the low
murmur and trampling swelled into a hoarse uproar. Hare had heard that
sound before; it was the tumult of mob-violence. A black dense throng
of men appeared crowding into the main street, and crossing toward the
square. The procession had some order; it was led and flanked by mounted
men. But the upflinging of many arms, the craning of necks, and the
leaping of men on the outskirts of the mass, the pressure inward and the
hideous roar, proclaimed its real character.

"By Heaven!" exclaimed Hare. "The Mormons have risen against the
rustlers. I understand now. John Caldwell spent last night in secretly
rousing his neighbors. They have surprised the rustlers. Now what?"

Hare vaulted the fence and ran down the road. A compact mob of men,
a hundred or more, had halted in the village under the wide-spreading
cottonwoods. Hare suddenly grasped the terrible significance of those
outstretched branches, and out of the thought grew another which made
him run at bursting break-neck speed.

"Open up! Let me in!" he yelled to the thickly thronged circle. Right
and left he flung men. "Make way!" His piercing voice stilled the angry
murmur. Fierce men with weapons held aloft fell back from his face.

"Dene's spy!" they cried.

The circle opened and closed upon him. He saw bound rustlers under armed
guard. Four still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay outstretched,
a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flinty-faced Mormons, rut