Cheyenne threw the dice on the table as Lawson got up.  “Go ahead and shoot.”

“Show me what I got to beat,” said Lawson.

“All right.  Watch ’em close.”

Cheyenne gathered up the dice and threw.  Calling his point, he snapped his fingers and threw again.  The men crowded round, momentarily interested in Cheyenne’s sprightly monologue.  Happening to glance through the doorway as he gathered up the dice for another throw, Cheyenne noticed that his horse had turned and was standing, with ears and eyes alert, looking toward the corral.

Cheyenne tossed up the dice, caught them and purposely made a wild throw.  One of the little cubes shot across the table and clattered on the floor.  Cheyenne barely had time to glance through the kitchen doorway and the window beyond as he recovered the cube.  But he had seen that the corral bars were down and that the corral was empty.  Quickly he resumed his place at the table and threw again, meanwhile talking steadily.  He had not made his point nor had he thrown a seven.  Sweat prickled on his forehead.  Little Jim had seen his father’s horses and knew that the men were in the cabin.  With the rashness of boyhood he had sneaked up to the corral, dropped the bars, and had then flung pine cones at the horses, starting them to milling and finally to a dash through the gateway and out into the meadow.

Cheyenne brushed his arm across his face.  “Come on you, Filaree!” he chanted.

Somebody would be mightily surprised when the ownership of Filaree and Joshua was finally decided.  Unwittingly, Little Jim had placed his father in a still more precarious position.  Sneed and his men, finding the corral empty, would naturally conclude that Cheyenne had kept them busy while some friend had run off the horses.  Cheyenne knew the risks he ran; but, above all, he wanted to prolong the game until Little Jim got safely beyond reach of Sneed’s men.  As for himself—­

Again Cheyenne threw, but he did not make his point, nor throw a seven.  He threw several times; and still he did not make his point.  Finally he made his point.  Smiling, he gathered up his money and tucked it in his pocket.

“I reckon that settles it,” he said cheerfully.

Sneed and Lawson exchanged glances.  Cheyenne, rolling a cigarette, drew a chair toward them and sat down.  He seemed at home, and altogether friendly.  One of the men picked up a deck of cards and suggested a game.  Sneed lighted his pipe and stepped to the kitchen to get a drink of water.  Cheyenne glanced casually round the cabin, drew his feet under himself, and jumped for the doorway.  He heard Sneed drop the dipper and knew that Sneed would pick up something else, and quickly.

Cheyenne made the saddle on the run, reined toward the corral, and, passing it on the run, turned in the saddle to glance back.  Sneed was in the doorway.  Cheyenne jerked his horse to one side and dug in the spurs.  Sneed’s rifle barked and a bullet whined past Cheyenne’s head.  He crouched in the saddle.  Again a bullet whistled across the sunlit clearing.  The cow-horse was going strong.  A tree flicked past, then another and another.