"Throw up your hands!" Ward called sharply, when his first flare of rage had cooled to steady purpose.

Buck Olney jumped as though a yellow-jacket had stung him. He turned a startled face over his shoulder and jerked the rifle up from the rock. Ward raised his sights a little and plugged a round, black-rimmed hole through Buck's hat crown.

"Throw up your hands, I told you!" he said, while the hills opposite were still flinging back the sound of the shot, and came closer.

Buck grunted an oath, dropped the rifle so suddenly that it clattered on the rock, and lifted his hands high, in the quiet sunlight.

"Get up from there and go on down to the shack--and keep your hands up. And remember all the reasons I've got for wanting to see you make a crooked move, so I'll have an excuse to shoot." Ward came still closer as he spoke. He was wishing he had brought his rope along. He did not feel quite easy in his mind while Buck Olney's hands were free. He kept thinking of what Billy Louise had said to him about shooting this man, and it was the first time since he had known her that he disliked the thought of her.

Buck got up awkwardly and went stumbling down the steep slope, with his hands trembling in the air upon either side of his head. From their nervous quivering it was evident that his memory was good, and that it was working upon the subject which Ward had suggested to him. He did not give Ward the weakest imitation of an excuse to shoot. And so the two of them came presently down upon the level and passed around the cabin to the door, with no more than ten feet of space between them--so inexorably had Ward crowded close upon the other's stumbling progress.

"Hold on a minute!"

Buck stopped as still as though he had gone against a rock wall.

Ward came closer, and Buck flinched away from the feel of the rifle muzzle between his shoulder blades. Ward reached out a cautious hand and pulled the six-shooter from its scabbard at Buck's right hip.

"Got a knife? You always used to go heeled with one. Speak up--and don't lie about it."

"Inside my coat," grunted Buck, and Ward's lip curled while he reached around the man's bulky body and found the knife in its leather sheath. Evidently Buck was still remembering with disquieting exactness what reasons Ward might have for wanting to kill him.

"Take down your left hand and open the door."

Buck did so and put his hand up again without being told.




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