light the small room
to its corners, then went in, peering and exploring into every
shadow.

"Great God! She wasn't here at all! And I've killed a man for that!"
he said.

He turned to the open door, stifled by remorse for what he had done,
although he had done it in a fight that had been pushed upon him, as
all his fights in the sheeplands had been pushed. He might have taken
Swan at his manly offer to fight hand-to-hand to see who should open
the door; or he might have allowed him to open it, and saved all
violence between them.

And this was the end of Earl Reid's bluff to Carlson that he would
deliver Joan to him there, bargained for and sold after the wild and
lawless reasoning of the Norse flockmaster. And Swan had drawn his
weapon with a glad light in his face, and stood up to him like a man.

"Throw it down here, Mackenzie--you can't get by with it this time!"

Mackenzie looked up from his daze of remorseful panic, slowly,
amazedly, not fully realizing that it was a human voice he heard, to
see Reid where he had scrambled to his knees, Carlson's gun in one
hand, the other thrown out to support his unsteady body.

"You can have it, Earl," Mackenzie said, with the relief in his voice
of a man who has heard good tidings.

"Hurry!" said Reid, in voice strained and dry.

"My gun's empty; you can have it too. I'm through," Mackenzie said.

As he spoke, Mackenzie jerked the lantern sharply, putting it out.
Reid fired. Mackenzie felt the shot strike his thigh like the flip of
a switch when one rides through a thicket. He threw himself upon Reid,
and held his arm while the desperate youth fired his remaining shots
into the wall.

Mackenzie shook Reid until he dropped the empty revolver, then took
him by the neck and pushed him to the open door. And there the morning
was spreading, showing the trees outlined against the east.

"Come out here and we'll talk it over, Reid." Mackenzie said.

Reid had nothing to say. He was sullen, uncontrite. Mackenzie waited a
little while for him to speak, holding him harshly by the collar.

"Well, there's the road out of this country," Mackenzie said, seeing
he would not speak. "This is the last trick you'll ever try to throw
here on me or anybody else. I suppose you came here on one of
Carlson's horses; go and get it, and when you start, head south."

Mackenzie felt the leg of his trousers wet from the blood of his
wound, and began to have some concern lest an artery had