nt, however, he straightened up,
shaking his head.

"What is it?" whispered Haines.

"Shut up," muttered Silent, and the words were formed by the motion of
his lips rather than through any sound. "That damned whistling again."

Every face changed. At a rustling in a near-by willow, Terry Jordan
started and then cursed softly to himself. That broke the spell.

"It's the whisperin' of the willows," said Purvis.

"You lie," said Silent hoarsely. "I hear the sound growing closer."

"Barry is dead," said Haines.

Silent whipped out his revolver--and then shoved it back into the
holster.

"Stand by me, boys," he pleaded. "It's his ghost come to haunt me! You
can't hear it, because he ain't come for you."

They stared at him with a fascinated horror.

"How do you know it's him?" asked Shorty Rhinehart.

"There ain't no sound in the whole world like it. It's a sort of cross
between the singing of a bird an' the wailin' of the wind. It's the
ghost of Whistlin' Dan."

The tall roan raised his head and whinnied softly. It was an unearthly
effect--as if the animal heard the sound which was inaudible to all
but his master. It changed big Jim Silent into a quavering coward.
Here were five practised fighters who feared nothing between heaven
and hell, but what could they avail him against a bodiless spirit? The
whistling stopped. He breathed again, but only for a moment.

It began again, and this time much louder and nearer. Surely the
others must hear it now, or else it was certainly a ghost. The men sat
with dilated eyes for an instant, and then Hal Purvis cried, "I heard
it, chief! If it's a ghost, it's hauntin' me too!"

Silent cursed loudly in his relief.

"It ain't a ghost. It's Whistlin' Dan himself. An' Terry Jordan has
been carryin' us lies! What in hell do you mean by it?"

"I ain't been carryin' you lies," said Jordan, hotly. "I told you
what I heard. I didn't never say that there was any one seen his dead
body!"

The whistling began to die out. A babble of conjecture and exclamation
broke out, but Jim Silent, still sickly white around the mouth, swung
up into the saddle.

"That Whistlin' Dan I'm leavin' to you, Haines," he called. "I've had
his blood onct, an' if I meet him agin there's goin' to be another
notch filed into my shootin' iron."

CHAPTER X

THE STRENGTH OF WOMEN

He rode swiftly into the dark of the willows, and the lack of noise
told that he was picking his way carefully am