find out.
Goin'?" he invited.

Both looked down at Haydon as they passed him, and an instant later they
were entering a door of the ranchhouse.

They had hardly disappeared when Haydon's head moved slightly.

His eyes were open; he glanced at the door of the ranchhouse through
which Harlan and Morgan had entered. Then he raised his head, dragged
himself to an elbow--upon which he rested momentarily, his face betraying
the bitter malignance and triumph that had seized him.

He had realized that Morgan had meant to kill him, even before Morgan had
revealed his identity, and his backward movement, which had brought him
against the wall of the ranchhouse had been made with design. He had felt
that even if he should succeed in beating Morgan, Harlan would have taken
up the quarrel, for he knew that Harlan also had designs on his life. And
with a cupidity aroused over the desperate predicament in which he found
himself, he had decided to take a forlorn chance.

Morgan's bullet had struck him, but by a convulsive side movement at the
instant Morgan's gun roared Haydon had escaped a fatal wound, and the
bullet had entered his left side above the heart, paralyzing one of the
big muscles of the shoulder.

His left arm was limp and useless, and dragged in the dust as he squirmed
around and gained his feet. There was no window in the wall of the
ranchhouse on that side; and he backed away, staggering a little, for he
had lost much blood. He kept the blank wall before him as he backed away
from the house; and when he reached his horse he was a long time getting
into the saddle. But he accomplished it at last; and sent the horse
slowly up the slope and into the timber out of which Harlan had ridden
with the black-bearded man on the day of his first visit to the Star.

Back where the trail converged with the main trail that ran directly up
the valley, Haydon, reeling in the saddle, sent his horse at a faster
pace, heading it toward the Cache where he was certain he would find
Deveny. And as he rode the triumph in his eyes grew. For he had heard
every word of the conversation between Harlan and Morgan, and he hoped to
get to the Cache before the two men discovered the trick he had played
upon them--before they could escape.

CHAPTER XXIII

DEVENY SECEDES

Since the day he had heard that Harlan had appeared at the Star and had
been taken into the outlaw band by Haydon, Deveny had exhibited fits of a
sullen morosenes