“It’s you, is it, redskin?  What the hell are you doin’ here?”

Deliberately, soundlessly as he had entered, the newcomer turned.  From his height of six feet one, an inch below that of Pete himself, he returned the other’s look fixedly, without answer.  He wore a soft flannel shirt, and a pair of dark brown corduroy trousers, supported by a belt.  Unconsciously, as though he were alone, he hitched the corduroys up over his narrow hips, in the motion of one who has been riding.  That was all.

Closer and closer came the red lids over Pete’s veritable disfigurement.  Involuntarily his great nostrils opened.

“Talk up there, Injun,” he repeated slowly; and this time his voice was almost gentle.  “My name’s Sweeney, and I’m speakin’ to you.  What the devil are you here for?”

No answer, not a sound; not even the twitching of an eyelid or a muscle.

Ten seconds passed, fifteen.

“I’ll give you one more chance there, aborigine;” slowly, with an effort, almost gratingly came the words, like the friction of a rusty spring at the striking of a clock; “and I ain’t in the habit of doin’ that either, pard.”  He halted and his great chest heaved with the effort of a mighty breath, his whole body leaned a bit forward.  “Tell me what you want here, and tell me quick, or by the eternal I’ll fill you so full of holes your own mother wouldn’t recognise you.”

One by one the two repeaters shifted, shifted until they were focussed upon a spot midway between the belt and the rolling collar of the flannel shirt.  “I’m listening, How Landor.”

At last the moment had come, the climax, the supreme instant in the career of those eight men in that tiny weather-boarded room.  No need to tell seven of them at least that it was a moment of life or death.  If something, something which seemed inevitable, happened, if one of those curling, itching fingers on the triggers tightened, if but once that took place, their lives were not worth the wording of a curse.  If once again that black-visaged, passion-mastered human smelt powder, there would be no end while a target had power to move, while a tiny gleaming cylinder remained in the row within his belt.  This they knew; and man by man, as the Creator made them, revealed the knowledge.  The jaws of Bob Manning were quiet now, but the old eyes blazed from beneath their sockets like the eyes of a grey timber wolf, the centre of a howling pack.  Next to him lank Wagner stood, waiting with closed lips; his lips as grey as those of the dead man on the floor.  Rank Judge had not moved, but the harness on his wooden stump creaked softly as his weight shifted from leg to leg.  Fat Buck Walker was perspiring almost grotesquely, like an earthenware pitcher.  Great drops hung from his chin, from his uptilted nose, and his cotton shirt was dark.  Slim Simpson, white before, was like a corpse; only his great boyish eyes stared out, as a somnambulist stares, as one hypnotised.  Last of all, at the