Jeff's eyes moved swiftly over the dim interior. The remoter corners of the place were shadowed. But the light was sufficient to yield him a view of four squalid bunks on which the many-hued blankets were tumbled. The walls bore signs of personal effort at decoration. There were photographs over each bunk, tacked up and disfigured by flies. There were odd prints pasted on the rough log walls, the seams of which were more or less adequately filled with mud to keep the weather out.

 

There were two rough window openings, one in each side wall. The only entrance or exit was the door at the northern end, through which he had approached. At the other end, directly opposite this, an oil lamp was shedding its feeble rays through a well-smoked chimney glass. It was standing on a small improvised table which divided two bunks set on wooden trestles. The whole interior was perhaps thirty feet in length and twelve feet wide, a roomy, unkempt shanty, which served its simple purpose as a shelter for men unused to any of the comforts of life.

 

The object which caught and held Jeff's instant attention was the figure of the man seated on the side of one of the bunks, beside the table on which the lamp stood. It was the figure of Sikkem Bruce, bearing no trace whatever of any mortal injury, and with a look of wide-eyed surprise upon his evil countenance.

 

Jeff moved up the room. He approached without haste. His eyes were steady, and his expression one of tight-lipped determination. There was something coldly commanding in his attitude. His fair, bronzed features, keen, set, displayed no weakening. His body seemed poised ready for everything that could possibly happen. The latent power and vigor of his movements were tremendous. He carried no weapons of defense in view, and his dress was a simple loose jacket over a cotton shirt, and, for nether garments, a pair of loose riding breeches which terminated in soft leather top-boots.

 

Sikkem's eyes were on him the whole time. There was even some slight apprehension in them at the sight of that swift, voiceless approach. Jeff came to a halt before him, and it was the ranch hand who found speech most necessary.

 

"Say, I didn't guess you was gettin' around to-night, boss," he said with some show of ease.

 

"No?"

 

"I sure didn't."

 

Jeff's retort flashed out.

 

"Then what did you send that youngster in for with mouthful of durned lies?"

 

Sikkem stared. But his look was unconvincing. Moments passed before his reply came, and in those moments the keen eyes of his employer were busy. The man was still in the working kit of a cowpuncher. Even to the chapps, and the prairie hat crushed down on his ugly bullet head. Then, too, his pair of guns were still strapped about his waist. None of these things escaped Jeff, any more than did the fellow's clumsy regard. He wondered how much truth--if any--lay behind that mask of wicked eyes and brutish features.

 

"I'm waiting."

 

Jeff's demand came with a rasp. The man's delay in reply had conveyed all he wanted to know of the truth in him.

 

"Wot youngster? I tell you I didn't send no one in." There was truculence in the denial. "Wot's the lies?"

 

The ranchman was no match for the keen mind of his employer. In brute force he might have been more than his equal. But even that was doubtful. While he was speaking Jeff moved. Up to that moment he had been facing the foreman with his back turned toward the distant door. Now his movement placed him against the table with his back to the other empty bunk, and his focus took in not only the man before him, but the shadowy outline of the distant half-open door.

 

"It's the boy we took on the other day at--your recommendation. Your recommendation. Get me? Guess he came with the yarn you were shot to death. You'd located the rustlers' camp. You needed to see me quick." Jeff's words came swiftly. Then after a pause he added: "You didn't send him along? Who did?"

 

As Jeff watched the man's deliberate shake of the head he became aware of a muffled sound, somewhere away beyond the door. It was faint, but, to him, unmistakable. He gave no sign.

 

"Where are the other boys?" he demanded.

 

"Out on cattle guard."

 

The movement beyond the door again penetrated the silence of the hut. Now it was that the ranchman made his mistake. Only for an instant did he turn his head and eyes in the direction of the sound. But it was sufficient.

 

Jeff's voice rasped again.

 

"Stand up, darn you! Stand up!"

 

Sikkem's gaze came back abruptly, and on the instant his right hand flew to his waist for his guns. But the muzzle of Jeff's revolver was within a foot of his head, and behind it his coldly shining eyes.

 

Sikkem's hand dropped from his waist. He stood up. The law of the gun was powerfully ingrained upon his mind.

 

"Loose those guns at your waist--quick! Let 'em drop on the bunk! Quick, or I'll pump you full of lead!"

 

The deadliness of Jeff's command was irresistible. The power of that leveled gun indisputable. The buckle was loosened, and the weapons fell on the blankets behind the ranchman.

 

"Now push your hands up! Right up!"

 

The command was obeyed on the instant, but the look which accompanied the movement was as deadly as human passion could make it.

 

"Back away! Back to the far end! Sharp!"

 

Sikkem moved. But his movement was not rapid enough. Jeff urged him.

 

In the pause Jeff's straining ears caught again the sound of movement, and he wondered why development was not precipitated. Perhaps---- But Sikkem had nearly reached the distant wall, and, at that instant, a whistle shrilled through the building.

 

Jeff knew he was trapped. But, with a wonderful sense of detachment, mind and body worked almost electrically. His revolver spat out its vicious report. For the fraction of a second he held the smoking lamp poised in his other hand. Then, like a shooting star, it flew through the adjacent window and fell extinguished amidst the crash of its own glass. It was at the complete fall of darkness that the door slammed closed, and half a dozen shots rang out through the building, followed by the "plonk" of the bullets embedding themselves in the solid logs immediately behind where the rancher had been standing.

 

But Jeff was no longer there. There had been a simultaneous clatter of falling bunk boards. There was the rustling of straw. Then a sound of scrambling, and, after that, a dead silence. The darkness was complete except for the faint silhouette of the windows against the dim starlight beyond them.

 

Jeff had taken the big chance. What remained now must be met as circumstance permitted. The blood in him was fired. The savage delight of battle. He would sell the last breath in his body at the highest price he could make his enemies pay. He had walked into a trap laid by the rustlers, headed, perhaps, by Sikkem Bruce, with his eyes wide open, and some almost insane yearning made him glad.

 

Now he crouched down against the wall beside the table. He had flung up a barrier of straw palliasse before him. It was not as a protection against gun-fire, but to screen his movements should his opponents produce a light. Then, too, there was another thought in his mind.

 

The place became alive with sounds, voiceless, muffled sounds of cautious movement. It was the movement of men who know that death is lurking at every turn. Nor could they tell whence it was most likely to come. It was a moment of tense and straining nerves wherein the wit of one man had discounted the elaborate plan to murder of those whose indifference to death only shrank from the contemplation of their own.

 

Jeff's eyes strained against the darkness. The windows stood out in silhouette. From these he had no fear. He knew, and he knew that these ruffians would know, the dangers attending themselves from any attack upon him from such a direction. The advantage would be entirely his, since he had possessed himself of Sikkem's complete arsenal. He knew it was for him to await the fire of these men, every shot of which would yield him a sure target.

 

A flash broke the blackness ahead of him. The bullet sank into the woodwork just above his head with a vicious splash. But he refrained from reply. Another crack split the silence, and the wall to the left of him flung back its response. Still he offered no reply.

 

His eyes were searching, searching. And a surge of excitement suddenly thrilled him.

 

Two shots came on the same instant. One slithered hotly in the flesh of his shoulder, but the other struck wide of him.

 

The wound gave him no concern. Every sense, every faculty was concentrated on one thought, on one object. A dim, fine-drawn but uneven line of shadowy light had grown out of the darkness to his now accustomed eyes. It was vague, so vague that it required the greatest concentration to detect. But he recognized it for what it was, and a savage delight possessed him as he observed that there were breaks in its continuity. The line was waist high, and lateral, and he interpreted it to suit himself.

 

He raised his gun and took steady aim at one of the breaks. His shot was deliberate, careful, since the sight of his weapon, even the weapon itself, remained invisible in the dark. He fired, and dropped himself prone behind his barrier.

 

A bitter curse followed by a groan of pain was............