In the beginning he had hoped to bluff them.  Now such hope had died out of him.  These were the sort of men who would want to see the other man’s cards laid down on the table.  And he knew that he must make good his bluff or there would in sober truth be an end of him.  His voice rang with cold determination.  And Ben and Mundy stopped.

Conniston watched that line of black faces, and as his eyes clung to the threatening arc he thought with a queer twitching of the lips of the football line-ups which he had watched in other days.  He was surprised that his feelings now were much as they had been then.  It was a game, and that in the other games a goal had been the thing he schemed and battled for while now it was his life made little difference.  He was surprised that he was cool, that his heart beat steadily, that his hands upon his gun were like rock.

There was something strange in the way the men were watching him, something in their sudden silence, in their eager faces, which puzzled him.  Their whole attitude spoke of one thing—­a breathless waiting.  What were they waiting for?  Had his words put the fear of death in them?  Were they watching to see if he was going to shoot down the men who led them?  Was there a chance—­

His taut senses told him of a danger which he could not understand.  Something was wrong; death hovered over him—­close, closer.  What was it?  His eyes flashed up and down the long curve of motionless figures, seeking an explanation and finding none.  A little shiver ran up and down his backbone.  He could not understand—­

A sound, scarcely louder than the footfall of a cat, but jarring harshly upon his straining, over-acute ears, told him.  He swung about with a sharp cry.  There was the explanation.  There, just behind him, barefooted, bent almost double, crouching to leap upon him, a great Chinaman, a long, curved knife clenched in his hand, was not three feet away.  Even as he swung about the giant Asiatic sprang forward, the knife flashing up and down.  Conniston struck with his rifle—­the range was too short for him to use the thirty-thirty save as a club.  It struck the big man a glancing blow upon the shoulder.

The lean, snarling, yellow face was so close to his that he could feel the hot, whisky-laden breath.  He parried, and the rifle was jerked from his grasp, falling with a clatter to the bed of the wagon.  The knife struck and bit into the shoulder he had thrown forward.  Again it was raised.  Conniston sprang back, and as he leaped he swept up the revolver from the barrel-top.  As the knife fell, cutting a long gash again in his shoulder, he jammed the muzzle of Lonesome Pete’s gun against the Chinaman’s stomach and fired.  The Chinaman grunted, coughed, and sank limply, vomiting blood.

For a moment Conniston forgot the men out yonder, growing suddenly sick at the sight of the ugly, twitching thing at his feet.  And then as quickly as it had come, the nausea was gone, and he was clear-headed and watchful.  He snatched up his rifle and whirled toward Ben and Mundy and the men between them.