and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.
"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted to know amiably.
The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.
"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, he's ours." He gave crisp orders.
"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.
For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded man had whipped up a rifle and fired.
Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. You see, it's loaded with buckshot."
One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such audacity as this was new to him.
"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned amusing," growled his leader.
"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."
"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."
"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row about?" the cornered man wanted to know.
"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."
"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"
"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.
"Douglas."
"What doing here?"
"Homesteading."
"Name?"
"Keller."
"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to shoot me. That's what you are."
"No."
"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of us. If you're not the man, where is he?"
"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."
"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."
"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so as to know him."
"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.
"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.
"Well, then?"
"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out.
"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out between set teeth.
"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin added.
Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in before these pursuers—and that one was a woman on a roan. Her frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels.
His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he could have testified against his own mother.
"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it may prove right expensive," he said quietly.
"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted.
By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the flankers had not yet got into action.
"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure—he ain't any hired killer. You can tie to that."
"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's enough for me," the cattleman swore.
"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying."
"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right."
"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder business myself. I'm going to find out what's what."
The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him.
"Flag of truce!" he shouted.
"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller called back.
Pesky waddled forward—a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball.
"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he rounded the rock barricade.
Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew this type of man like a brother.
"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh."
"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. Keller?"
"I thought I explained it was another party did that."
Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it.
"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that kinder lets you out."
Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a dozen buckshot.
"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender on guarantee of a square deal?"
"Sure—that's all I ask. I never met your friend—didn't know who he was from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail."
"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. Bushwhacker into the cañon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here or a hole in the ground swallowed him."
He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the white-toothed smile that met him blandly.
"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration."
Half