!"

Blenham jeered at him.

"And be shot down like a dog? There's a girl in here, Packard. Young
Packard is gone on her; he wants to marry her. An' unless you an' him
give your word to let me go, I'm goin' to jam a gun at her head an'
blow her brains out. An' I'll get him as I come out; an' I'll get you."

"Let him go!" called Terry faintly. "Let him go, Steve! Oh, dear
God--if you love me----"

"Come out, Blenham!" shouted Steve. "I give you my word, so help me
God, to let you go scot-free. Come out!"

"Not so fast," mocked Blenham, lingering over his high card. "You've
got to promise for your men; you've got to send 'em across the valley.
You've got to have a horse handy for me to ride. You've got to back
down the valley yourse'f. An' ol' man Packard has got to do the same."

Old man Packard roared out his curses, but in the end, seeing nothing
else to do, he went grumbling down the rocky slope, back to his horse
and to his men. But first he had known perhaps the supreme humiliation
of his life. He had said:

"Blenham, on my word of honor as a Packard an' a gentleman, I'll let
you go. An' I'll make my men let you go."

And there were actually tears hanging to his lashes as he swung again
into his saddle.

"He has not hurt you, Terry?" asked Steve before he too would go down
the slope.

"No," cried Terry. "No, no! But, oh, hurry, hurry, Steve. I feel
that I'll smother, I'll die!"

From down in the valley they watched, close to a score of hard-eyed,
wrath-filled men, as Blenham stepped out of the crevice and on to the
ledge. They saw how he jeered as he stepped over the body of the man
he had shot.

"A fool was Barbee," he called. "A fool the Packards, ol' an' young!"

They saw him come down the slope, carrying himself with a swaggering
air of braggadocio, but plainly watchful and suspicious. Terry had
come out upon the ledge and she too watched him. He came down swiftly
and swung up into the saddle of the horse they had left for him.

And now at last his suspicion was past. His triumph broke out like a
streak of evil light.

"I was ready to go," he called, "any time!"

He swung his arm out toward the blue hills of Old Mexico.

"Down there-----"

Barbee whom they had thought dead stirred a little where he lay. The
rifle under him he thrust forward six inches.

"Blenham!" he called weakly.

Blenham swung about and fired, again from the hip. But he had fired
hastily. Bar