he smile froze on his face. It was as if he had
felt the cold, grey gaze of Henderson on the back of his neck. Some
warning, certainly, was flashed to that mysterious sixth sense which
the people of the wild, man or beast, seem sometimes to be endowed
with. He wheeled like lightning, his revolver seeming to leap up from
his belt with the same motion. But in the same fraction of a second
that his eyes met Henderson's they met the white flame-spurt of
Henderson's rifle--and then, the dark.

As Pichot's body collapsed, it toppled over the rim into Blackwater
Pot and fell across two moving logs. Mitchell had thrown up his hands
straight above his head when Pichot fell, knowing instantly that that
was his only hope of escaping the same fate as his leader's.

One look at Henderson's face, however, satisfied him that he was not
going to be dealt with on the spot, and he set his thick jaw stolidly.
Then his eyes wandered down into the pot, following the leader whom,
in his way, he had loved if ever he had loved any one or anything.
Fascinated, his stare followed the two logs as they journeyed around,
with Pichot's limp form, face upwards, sprawled across them. They
reached the cleft, turned, and shot forth into the raving of the
sluice, and a groan of horror burst from "Bug's" lips. By this
Henderson knew what had happened, and, to his immeasurable self-scorn,
a qualm of remembered fear caught sickeningly at his heart. But
nothing of this betrayed itself in his face or voice.

"Come on, Mitchell!" he said, briskly. "I'm in a hurry. You jest step
along in front, an' see ye keep both hands well up over yer head, or
ye'll be savin' the county the cost o' yer rope. Step out, now."

He stood aside, with Sis at his elbow, to make room. As Mitchell
passed, his hands held high, a mad light flamed up into his sullen
eyes, and he was on the point of springing, like a wolf, at his
captor's throat. But Henderson's look was cool and steady, and his gun
held low. The impulse flickered out in the brute's dull veins. But as
he glanced at Sis he suddenly understood that it was she who had
brought all this to pass. His black face snarled upon her like a
wolf's at bay, with an inarticulate curse more horrible than any words
could make it. With a shiver the child slipped behind Henderson's back
and hid her face.

"Don't be skeered o' him, kid, not one little mite," said Henderson,
gently. "He ain't agoin' to trouble this earth no more. An' I'