inent tragedy. The sitting man stiffened, divining the promise
of violence; the standing man shrank back a little and looked downward at
the pistol in his right hand.

The rider saw the glance and laughed lowly.

"Keep her right where she is, Dolver," he warned. "You lift her one
little wee lift, an' I bore you plumb in the brain-box. Sort of
flabbergasted, eh? Didn't expect to run into me again so soon?"

He laughed as the other cringed, his face dead white, his eyes fixed on
the rider with a sort of dread fascination.

"Dolver, didn't you know when you got my little partner, Davey Langan,
that I'd be comin' for you?" said the rider in a slow, drawling whisper.
"In the back you got him, not givin' him a chance. You're gettin' yours
now. I'm givin' you a chance to take it like a man--standin', with your
face to me. Lift her now--damn you!"

There was no change in his expression as he watched the man he had called
Dolver. There came no change in the cold, steady gleam of his eyes as he
saw the man stiffen and swing the muzzle of his pistol upward with a
quick, jerky motion. But he sneered as with the movement he sent a bullet
into the man's chest; his lips curving with slight irony when Dolver's
gun went off, the bullet throwing up sand at Purgatory's forehoofs.

His eyes grew hard as he saw Dolver stagger, drop his pistol, and clutch
at his chest; and he watched with seeming indifference as the man slowly
sank to his knees and stretched out, face down, in the dust at the base
of the rock.

His lips were stiff with bitter rage, however, as he faced the other man,
who had not moved.

"Get up on your hind legs, you yellow coyote!" he commanded.

For an instant it seemed that the other man was to share the fate of the
first. The man seemed to think so, too, for he got up trembling, his
hands outstretched along the rock, the fingers outspread and twitching
from the paralysis of fear that had seized him.

"Shoot your gab off quick!" commanded the rider. "Who are you?"

"I'm Laskar," the man muttered.

"Where you from?"

"Lamo."

The rider's eyes quickened. "Where did you meet up with that scum?" He
indicated Dolver.

"In town."

"Lamo?"

The man nodded.

"How long ago?" asked the rider.

"'Bout a week."

The man's voice was hoarse; he seemed reluctant to talk more, and he cast
furtive, dreading glances toward the base of the rock where Dolver had
stood before the rider had surprised the men.

Watc