A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had been running.  It was Keller.

That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw him grinning round on a circle of armed foes.  Weaver nodded recognition, and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for him last night.

“We’ll talk this over downstairs,” old Sanderson announced grimly.

They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.

“Thanks.  Think I’ll take it standing,” said Buck, an elbow on the mantel.

He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had already condemned him to death.  The quiet repression they imposed on themselves told him as much.  But his gaze passed calmly from one to another, without the least shrinking.  All of them save Keller and Phil were unusually tall men—­as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them.  They were grim, hard men, but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.

“Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver,” Sanderson said, without delay.

“Made up your mind, have you?”

“Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus Menendez.”

“A bad break, that—­and me a prisoner here.  Some of the boys had been out on the range a week.  I reckon they didn’t know I was the rat in your trap.”

“So much the worse for you.”

“Looks like,” Weaver nodded.  Then he added, almost carelessly:  “I expect there wouldn’t be any use mentioning the law to you?  It’s here to punish the man that shot Menendez.”

“Not a bit of use.  You own the sheriff and half the juries in this county.  Besides, we’ve got the man right here that is responsible for the killing of poor Jesus.”

“Oh!  If you look at it that way, of course——­”

“That’s the way to look at it I don’t blame your riders any more than I blame the guns they fired. You did that killing.”

“Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles away.”

“That makes no difference.”

“Seems to me it makes some,” suggested Keller, speaking for the first time.  “His riders may have acted contrary to orders.  He surely did not give any specific orders in this case.”

“His actions for months past have been orders enough,” said Cuffs.

“You’d better investigate before you take action,” Larrabie urged.

“We’ve done all the investigating we’re going to do.  This man has set himself up like a czar.  I’m not going through the list of it all, but he has more than reached the limit months ago.  He’s passed it now.  He’s got to die, by gum,” the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.

“We all have to do that.  Just when does my time come?” Weaver asked.

“Now,” cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.