A clatter of hoofs and rattling of gravel preceded the appearance of a black horse in the garden path.  His rider bent low to dodge the vines of the arbor, and reined in before the porch to slip out of the saddle with the agility of an Indian.  It was Dene, dark, smiling, nonchalant.

“What do you seek in the house of a Bishop?” challenged August Naab, planting his broad bulk square before Hare.

“Dene’s spy!”

“What do you seek in the house of a Bishop?” repeated Naab.

“I shore want to see the young feller you lied to me about,” returned Dene, his smile slowly fading.

“No speech could be a lie to an outlaw.”

“I want him, you Mormon preacher!”

“You can’t have him.”

“I’ll shore get him.”

In one great stride Naab confronted and towered over Dene.

The rustler’s gaze shifted warily from Naab to the quiet Mormons and back again.  Then his right hand quivered and shot downward.  Naab’s act was even quicker.  A Colt gleamed and whirled to the grass, and the outlaw cried as his arm cracked in the Mormon’s grasp.

Dave Naab leaped off the bank directly in front of Dene’s approaching companions, and faced them, alert and silent, his hand on his hip.

August Naab swung the outlaw against the porch-post and held him there with brawny arm.

“Whelp of an evil breed!” he thundered, shaking his gray head.  “Do you think we fear you and your gunsharp tricks?  Look!  See this!” He released Dene and stepped back with his hand before him.  Suddenly it moved, quicker than sight, and a Colt revolver lay in his outstretched palm.  He dropped it back into the holster.  “Let that teach you never to draw on me again.”  He doubled his huge fist and shoved it before Dene’s eyes.  “One blow would crack your skull like an egg-shell.  Why don’t I deal it?  Because, you mindless hell-hound, because there’s a higher law than man’s—­God’s law—­Thou shalt not kill!  Understand that if you can.  Leave me and mine alone from this day.  Now go!”

He pushed Dene down the path into the arms of his companions.

“Out with you!” said Dave Naab.  “Hurry!  Get your horse.  Hurry!  I’m not so particular about God as Dad is!”

III THE TRAIL OF THE RED WALL

After the departure of Dene and his comrades Naab decided to leave White Sage at nightfall.  Martin Cole and the Bishop’s sons tried to persuade him to remain, urging that the trouble sure to come could be more safely met in the village.  Naab, however, was obdurate, unreasonably so, Cole said, unless there were some good reason why he wished to strike the trail in the night.  When twilight closed in Naab had his teams ready and the women shut in the canvas-covered wagons.  Hare was to ride in an open wagon, one that Naab had left at White Sage to be loaded with grain.  When it grew so dark that objects were scarcely discernible a man vaulted the cottage fence.