ows in for
you in ten minutes with their hands in the air."

"I know you would; I know it. But I'm paid for this sort of thing and
you are not, and I advise no man to take unnecessary chances. If you
all want to stay, why, stay; but don't ride ahead of the line, and let
me do all the talking. See that your guns are loose--you'll never have
but one chance to pull, and don't pull till you're ready. The albino
is riding in the middle now, isn't he? And a little back, playing for
a quick drop. Watch him. Who is that on the right? Can it be George
Seagrue? Well, this is a bunch. And I guess Karg is with them."

Holding their horses to a slow walk, the two parties gingerly
approached each other. When the Cache riders halted the railroad
riders halted; and when the three rode the five rode: but the three
rode with absolute alignment and acted as one, while Whispering Smith
had trouble in holding his men back until the two lines were fifty
feet apart.

By this time the youngest of the cowboys had steadied and was thinking
hard. Whispering Smith halted. In perfect order and sitting their
horses as if they were riding parade, the horses ambling at a snail's
pace, the Cache riders advanced in the sunshine like one man. When Du
Sang and his companions reined up, less than twelve feet separated the
two lines.

In his tan shirt, Du Sang, with his yellow hair, his white eyelashes,
and his narrow face, was the least impressive of the three men.
The Norwegian, Seagrue, rode on the right, his florid blood showing
under the tan on his neck and arms. He spoke to the cowboys from the
ranch, and on the left the young fellow Karg, with the broken
nose, black-eyed and alert, looked the men over in front of him and
nodded to Dancing. Du Sang and his companions wore short-armed shirts;
rifles were slung at their pommels, and revolvers stuck in their
hip-scabbards. Whispering Smith, in his dusty suit of khaki, was the
only man in either line who showed no revolver, but a hammerless or
muley Savage rifle hung beside his pommel.

Du Sang, blinking, spoke first: "Which of you fellows is heading this
round-up?"

"I am heading the round-up," said Whispering Smith. "Why? Have we got
some of your cattle?"

The two men spoke as quietly as school-teachers. Whispering Smith's
expression in no way changed, except that as he spoke he lifted his
eyebrows a little more than usual.

Du Sang looked at him closely as he went on: "What kind of a way is