"Oh, come off; you can't run your notions agin the whole blame moral

sentiment of this camp."

"Moral sentiment! I 'm backin' up the law, not moral sentiment, ye

cross-eyed beer-slinger, an' if ye try edgin' up ther another step I

'll plug you with this '45.'"

There was a minute of hesitancy while the men below conferred, the

marshal looking contemptuously down upon them, his revolver gleaming

ominously in the light. Evidently the group hated to go back without

the prisoner.

"Oh, come on, Buck, show a little hoss sense," the leader sang out.

"We 've got every feller in camp along with us, an' there ain't no show

fer the two o' ye to hold out against that sort of an outfit."

Mason smiled and patted the barrel of his Colt.

"Oh, go to blazes! When I want any advice, Jimmie, I'll send fer ye."

Some one fired, the ball digging up the soft earth at the marshal's

feet, and flinging it in a blinding cloud into Hampton's eyes. Mason's

answer was a sudden fusilade, which sent the crowd flying

helter-skelter into the underbrush. One among them staggered and half

fell, yet succeeded in dragging himself out of sight.

"Great Scott, if I don't believe I winged James!" the shooter remarked

cheerfully, reaching back into his pocket for more cartridges. "Maybe

them boys will be a bit more keerful if they once onderstand they 're

up agin the real thing. Well, perhaps I better skin down, fer I reckon

it's liable ter be rifles next."

It was rifles next, and the "winging" of Big Jim, however it may have

inspired caution, also developed fresh animosity in the hearts of his

followers, and brought forth evidences of discipline in their approach.

Peering across the sheltering dump pile, the besieged were able to

perceive the dark figures cautiously advancing through the protecting

brush; they spread out widely until their two flanks were close in

against the wall of rock, and then the deadly rifles began to spit

spitefully, the balls casting up the soft dirt in clouds or flattening

against the stones. The two men crouched lower, hugging their pile of

slag, unable to perceive even a stray assailant within range of their

ready revolvers. Hampton remained cool, alert, and motionless,

striving in vain to discover some means of escape, but the little

marshal kept grimly cheerful, creeping constantly from point to point

in the endeavor to get a return shot at his tormentors.

"This whole blame country is full of discharged sojers," he growled,

"an' they know their biz all right. I reckon them fellers is pretty

sure to git one of us yit; anyhow, they 've got us cooped. Say, Bob,

thet lad crawling yonder ought to be in reach, an' it's our bounden

duty not to let the boys git too gay."




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