as on him; he was pursuing the
price of blood.

At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail.
Greevy would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He
turned to Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. "You go back," he said.
"It's my business. I don't want you to see. You don't want to see, then
you won't know, and you won't need to lie. You said that the man that
killed Clint ought to die. He's going to die, but it's none o' your
business. I want to be alone. In a minute he'll be where I kin git
him--plumb. You go, Sinnet-right off. It's my business."

There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet's face; it was as hard as
stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them.

"It's my business right enough, Buck," he said, "and you're not going to
kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It's broke
her heart almost, and there's no use making her an orphan too. She can't
stand it. She's had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, let
up!" He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the
mountaineer was to take aim.

There was a terrible look in Buckmaster's face. He raised his
single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the
moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might
not have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly.

"Git away from here," he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. "Git
away quick; he'll be down past here in a minute."

Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great
clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster's wrist in a
grip like a vice.

"Greevy didn't kill him, Buck," he said. But the mountaineer was gone
mad, and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm
round the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free
Sinnet's hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet's neck. He did not realise
what he was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the
murderer of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive
in him. Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which
there was a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther
for safety, but no sane man's strength could withstand the demoniacal
energy that bent and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then
he said in a hoarse whisper, "Greevy didn't kill him. I killed him,
and--"

At th