“It’s funny about a woman, now, ain’t it?” said Nebraska, confidentially, to a companion.  “One minnit she’ll snatch you bald-headed; the next, she’ll melt in your mouth like sugar.  An’ I’ll be darned if the changeablest one ain’t the kind to hold a feller longest.  But it’s h—­l.  I was married onct.  Not any more for mine!  A pal I had used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad.  D—­n if it ain’t so.  When there’s a woman around there’s somethin’ allus comin’ off.”

But the strain, instead of relaxing, became portentous.  Holderness suddenly showed he was ill at ease; he appeared to be expecting arrivals from the direction of Seeping Springs.  Snap Naab leaned against the side of the door, his narrow gaze cunningly studying the rustlers before him.  More than any other he had caught a foreshadowing.  Like the desert-hawk he could see afar.  Suddenly he pressed back against the door, half opening it while he faced the men.

“Stop!” commanded Holderness.  The change in his voice was as if it had come from another man.  “You don’t go in there!”

“I’m going to take the girl and ride to White Sage,” replied Naab, in slow deliberation.

“Bah!  You say that only for the excuse to get into the cabin with her.  You tried it last night and I blocked you.  Shut the door, Naab, or something’ll happen.”

“There’s more going to happen than ever you think of, Holderness.  Don’t interfere now, I’m going.”

“Well, go ahead—­but you won’t take the girl!”

Snap Naab swung off the step, slamming the door behind him.

“So-ho!” he exclaimed, sneeringly.  “That’s why you’ve made me foreman, eh?” His claw-like hand moved almost imperceptibly upward while his pale eyes strove to pierce the strength behind Holderness’s effrontery.  The rustler chief had a trump card to play; one that showed in his sardonic smile.

“Naab, you don’t get the girl.”

“Maybe you’ll get her?” hissed Snap.

“I always intended to.”

Surely never before had passion driven Snap’s hand to such speed.  His Colt gleamed in the camp-fire light.  Click!  Click!  Click!  The hammer fell upon empty chambers.

“H—­l!” he shrieked.

Holderness laughed sarcastically.

“That’s where you’re going!” he cried.  “Here’s to Naab’s trick with a gun—­ Bah!” And he shot his foreman through the heart.

Snap plunged upon his face.  His hands beat the ground like the shuffling wings of a wounded partridge.  His fingers gripped the dust, spread convulsively, straightened, and sank limp.

Holderness called through the door of the cabin.  “Mescal, I’ve rid you of your would-be husband.  Cheer-up!” Then, pointing to the fallen man, he said to the nearest bystanders:  “Some of you drag that out for the coyotes.”

The first fellow who bent over Snap happened to be the Nebraska rustler, and he curiously opened the breech of the six-shooter he picked up.  “No shells!” he said.  He pulled Snap’s second Colt from his belt, and unbreeched that.  “No shells!  Well, d—­n me!” He surveyed the group of grim men, not one of whom had any reply.