their cynical grin. "Well--why in hell don't you shoot?"

"Want to git it over with in a hurry, do you?" sneered the outlaw. "Well
I don't! I'm goin' to git you all right, but I'm goin' to take my time
to it. When you skipped out a year back fer fear of what I'd do to you,
you'd ought to stayed away."

The Texan laughed: "Just as big a damned fool as ever, Purdy. Just as
big a four-flusher, too. You better shoot while you've got the chance.
'Cause if you don't I'll kill you, sure as hell."

Purdy sneered: "Gittin' in yer bluff right up to the last, eh? Thought
you could sneak up an' git me when I wasn't lookin', eh? Thought--" The
sentence was never finished. The Texan's expression suddenly changed.
His eyes fixed wildly upon a point directly behind Purdy and he cried
out in sudden alarm:

"Don't kill him, Cass! He's mine!"

Like a flash, Purdy whirled, and like a flash the Texan was out of his
saddle and behind a rock. And as Jennie had predicted, he hit the ground
a-shootin'. His own horse had shielded him from the others whose
attention had been momentarily diverted to their leader. Instantly Purdy
discovered the ruse--but too late. As he whirled again to face the
Texan, the latter's gun roared, and one of Purdy's guns crashed against
a rock-fragment, as its owner, his wrist shattered, dived behind his
rock with a scream of mingled rage and pain. Three times more the Texan
shot, beneath the belly of his horse, and the two outlaws to the right
pitched forward in crumpled heaps and lay motionless. Frenzied by the
noise, the big blue roan plunged blindly forward. The man in front made
a frantic effort to get out of his way, failed, and the next moment,
crashed backward against a rock-fragment from which he ricocheted from
sight while the great blue roan galloped on, reins flying, and stirrups
wildly lashing his sides.

"That leaves just the two of us, Purdy," drawled the Texan from the
shelter of his rock, as he reloaded his gun.

A vicious snarl from the hiding place of the outlaw was the only answer.

"I told you you was a fool not to shoot while you had the chance. I'm
goin' to get you, now. But, seein' that you wasn't in no hurry about it,
I won't be neither. There's quite a few things I want you to
hear--things you ought to know for the good of your soul."

"You don't dast to git me!" came exultingly, from behind Purdy's rock,
"if you do, what'll become of _her_--the pilgrim's woman? She's right
now lay