s
not only a cowardly cur, but a blundering fool as well, as was plainly
shown in his foolish sale of that apex mine. Why, he might just as well
have got the million out of it that I did, if he had been honest and
only ordinarily intelligent. I knew the vein was there all the time, and
I really think he had a suspicion of it. But his great mistake was his
insane hatred of me, and he bungled his revenge badly. He really thought
he was cleverly swindling me, when the fact was that he was playing
directly into my hand."

He laughed scornfully and drew down the fair head to his.

"Let us forget about the fool. I had sworn to kill him once, but now
that he was unconsciously the cause of all my good fortune I feel only
pity for him."

Over in the clematis the sun was gleaming on a polished tube of steel
that was leveled directly at his heart, the eyes aligned along its
sights malignant with insane fury. But the finger crooked about the
trigger was restrained by a fiendish thought and with a chuckle Matlock
waited.

The distance was absurdly short and at that range he could clip the head
of a match. Just two more inches of elevation of that hated head and he
could send the jacketed bullet shearing just through the bridge of the
aquiline nose, splitting both eyeballs and blinding his enemy for the
little space of life he would thereafter accord him. It would be passing
sweet to have that helpless, sightless thing listen unseeingly to his
maltreatment of the woman.

At that moment his horse, which had been picketed some distance away in
the brush, discovered the presence of the two horses in the glade and
gave a loud whinny of salutation. Douglass was on his feet in a second,
his hand upon his revolver butt. The presence of another horse in that
canyon was a suspicious thing and as he inclined his head toward the
direction from which the whinny had come, his sharp eye discerned the
gleam in the clematis.

Instantly the gun leaped from its scabbard, but in the moment of its
release there came a faint haze from the leafy screen, a sharp report,
and Douglass pitched forward, face down, beside the little spring, the
revolver falling from his nerveless hand directly into the lap of the
screaming woman.

Baffled of his proposed torture, and intent now only on making sure of
the man he feared even in death, Matlock came running forward, working
the bolt of his rifle as he ran. At the side of his victim he paused and
thrust th