gain, there sat the old
woman rocking back and forth. But to-day she stared at the wall before
her.

Casey felt a distinct sensation of relief just in knowing that she was,
after all, capable of moving. Now her head was not bent, but rested
against the back of her chair. She was rocking steadily, quietly, with
never a halt.

Casey rapped on the window and waited, fighting a nameless dread of the
mystery of her. But she continued to rock and to stare at the wall; if
she heard the tapping she gave no sign whatever. So presently he turned
away and set himself to the work of finding the man with the rifle.

To that end he first of all climbed the tallest pinon tree in sight; a
tree that stood on a rise of ground apart from its brothers. From the
concealment of its branches, he surveyed his surroundings carefully,
noting especially the notched unevenness of the butte's rim and how
just behind him it narrowed unexpectedly to a thin ridge not more than
a couple of hundred yards in breadth. A jagged outcropping cut
straight across and Casey saw how yesterday he had mistaken that ledge
for the rim of the butte. His man must have been out on the point
beyond him all the while. He was out there now, very likely; there, or
down in the camp he had watched yesterday like a vulture.

His search having narrowed to an area easily covered in an hour or two,
Casey turned his head and examined as well as he could the deep canyon
that had bitten into the butte and caused that narrow peak. Trees
blocked his view there, and he was feeling about for a lower foothold
so that he could make the descent when a voice from the ground startled
him considerably.

"Come down outa there, before I shoot yuh down!"

Casey looked down and saw what he afterwards declared was the meanest
looking man on earth, pointing straight at him the widest muzzled
shotgun he had ever seen in his life.

Casey came down. The last ten feet of the distance he made in a clean
jump, planting his feet full in the old man's stomach. The meanest
looking man on earth gave a grunt and crumpled, with Casey's fingers
digging into his throat.

Whether Casey would have killed him or not will never be known. For
just as the man was falling limp in his hands, another heavy body
landed upon Casey's back. Casey felt a hard, chill circle pressed
against his perspiring temple. His hands relaxed and fall away from
the throat, leaving finger marks there in the flesh.

"G