“I rode in to—­”

Hare leaped from his hiding-place.

“Holderness!”

The rustler pivoted on whirling heels.

“Dene’s spy!” he exclaimed, aghast.  Swift changes swept his mobile features.  Fear flickered in his eyes as he faced his foe; then came wonder, a glint of amusement, dark anger, and the terrible instinct of death impending.

“Naab’s trick!” hissed Hare, with his hand held high.  The suggestion in his words, the meaning in his look, held the three rustlers transfixed.  The surprise was his strength.

In Holderness’s amber eyes shone his desperate calculation of chances.  Hare’s fateful glance, impossible to elude, his strung form slightly crouched, his cold deliberate mention of Naab’s trick, and more than all the poise of that quivering hand, filled the rustler with a terror that he could not hide.

He had been bidden to draw and he could not summon the force.

“Naab’s trick!” repeated Hare, mockingly.

Suddenly Holderness reached for his gun.

Hare’s hand leapt like a lightning stroke.  Gleam of blue—­spurt of red—­ crash!

Holderness swayed with blond head swinging backward; the amber of his eyes suddenly darkened; the life in them glazed; like a log he fell clutching the weapon he had half drawn.

XX THE RAGE OF THE OLD LION

“Take Holderness away—­quick!” ordered Hare.  A thin curl of blue smoke floated from the muzzle of his raised weapon.

The rustlers started out of their statue-like immobility, and lifting their dead leader dragged him down the garden path with his spurs clinking on the gravel and ploughing little furrows.

“Bishop, go in now.  They may return,” said Hare.  He hurried up the steps to place his arm round the tottering old man.

“Was that Holderness?”

“Yes,” replied Hare.

“The deeds of the wicked return unto them!  God’s will!”

Hare led the Bishop indoors.  The sitting-room was full of wailing women and crying children.  None of the young men were present.  Again Hare made note of their inexplicable absence.  He spoke soothingly to the frightened family.  The little boys and girls yielded readily to his persuasion, but the women took no heed of him.

“Where are your sons?” asked Hare.

“I don’t know,” replied the Bishop.  “They should be here to stand by you.  It’s strange.  I don’t understand.  Last night my sons were visited by many men, coming and going in twos and threes till late.  They didn’t sleep in their beds.  I know not what to think.”

Hare remembered John Caldwell’s enigmatic face.

“Have the rustlers really come?” asked a young woman, whose eyes were red and cheeks tear-stained.

“They have.  Nineteen in all.  I counted them,” answered Hare.