s upon the sky-line, and in the flash-like glimpse of
the riderless horse. Frantically he dug his spurless heels into the
labouring sides of his mount.

"Mebbe-so you kill um good," the man had said at parting, and as
Endicott rode he knew that he would kill, and for him the knowledge
held nothing of repugnance--only a wild fierce joy. He looked at the
revolver in his hand. Never before had the hand held a lethal weapon,
yet no slightest doubt as to his ability to use it entered his brain.
Above him, somewhere upon the plain beyond the bench rim, the woman he
loved was at the mercy of a man whom Endicott instinctively knew would
stop at nothing to gain an end. The thought that the man he intended
to kill was armed and that he was a dead shot never entered his head,
nor did he remember that the woman had mocked and ignored him, and
against his advice had wilfully placed herself in the man's power. She
had harried and exasperated him beyond measure--and yet he loved her.

The trail grew suddenly lighter. The walls of the coulee flattened
into a wide expanse of open. Mountains loomed in the distance and in
the white moonlight a riderless horse ceased snipping grass, raised his
head, and with ears cocked forward, stared at him. In a fever of
suspense Endicott gazed about him, straining his eyes to penetrate the
half-light, but the plain stretched endlessly away, and upon its
surface was no living, moving thing.

Suddenly his horse pricked his ears and sniffed. Out of a near-by
depression that did not show in the moonlight another horse appeared.
It, too, was riderless, and the next instant, from the same direction
sounded a low, muffled cry and, leaping from his saddle, he dashed
toward the spot. The sage grew higher in the depression which was the
head of a branch of the coulee by means of which the trail gained the
bench, and as he plunged in, the head and shoulders of a man appeared
above a bush. Endicott was very close when the man pushed something
fiercely from him, and the body of a woman crashed heavily into the
sage. Levelling the gun, he fired. The shot rang loud, and upon the
edge of the depression a horse snorted nervously. The man pitched
forward and lay sprawled grotesquely upon the ground and Endicott saw
that his extended hand grasped a revolver.

Dully he stared at the thing on the ground at his feet. There was a
movement in the scrub and Alice Marcum stood beside him. He glanced
into her