ad off
to one side with jest and quip, with flash of bottle and slap on
shoulder. The populace thinned a bit from the steps.... And then
suddenly as a pistol shot Cleve Whitmore's voice rang out like a
clarion.

"Wylackie!" it pealed across the subdued noises, "You ---- ---- ----
hell hound. _Turn round!_"

There was death in it.

The gun man whirled, drawing like lightning. In the Court House door,
Cleve Whitmore with his sister's limp form on his shoulder, beat him
to it.

He had drawn as he called. Before the words were off his lips he
pulled the trigger and shot Wylackie through the heart.

As his henchman fell Courtrey's good hand flashed to his hip, but
Dixon of the Vigilantes, shot out an arm and knocked him forward from
behind.

For the second time Courtrey had missed a life because a brave heart
dared him. Old Pete had paid the price for that trick. Dixon had no
thought of it.

And in one moment the chance was past, for a sound began to roar from
that silent crowd which had poured from the courtroom--the deep,
bloodcurdling sound of the mob forming, inarticulate, uncertain.

For the first time in his life Courtrey felt real fear grip him.

He had killed and stolen and wronged among these people and gotten
away with it. He had never feared them. They had been silent. Now with
the first deep rumble from the concrete throat of Lost Valley he got
his first instinctive thrill of disaster.

He stood for a moment in utter silence. Then he flung up his hands,
snapped out an order, whirled on his heel and went swiftly to the near
rack where stood Bolt and the rest of the Ironwoods. Like a set of
puppets on strings his men drew after him--and they left Wylackie Bob
where he fell.

In a matter of seconds the whole Stronghold gang was mounted and
clattering down the street--out of the town toward the open range.

* * * * *

And the killer on the Court House steps?

He stood where he was and looked with blazing eyes over the motley
crowd beneath him. Steptoe Service made a step toward him, looked
round, wet his lips and thought better of it.

* * * * *

And then, in another second, the crowd was a mob and the mob was the
Vigilantes. Some one took Ellen from Cleve's shoulder with careful
hands and carried her away. Then some one reached down and picked him
up bodily. Another joined, and they set him on their shoulders,