“Y’u’ve called the turn.”

“Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?”

“Without giving y’u a chance to escape or sneak back to the penitentiary.”

The thing was horribly unthinkable.  The warm mellow afternoon sunshine wrapped them about.  The horses grazed with quiet unconcern.  One of these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with machine-like regularity.  Another was rolling a cigarette.  There was nothing of dramatic effect.  Not a man had raised his voice.  But Neill knew there was no appeal.  He had come to the end of the passage through a horrible mistake.  He raged in bitter resentment against his fate, against these men who stood so quietly about him ready to execute it, most of all against the girl who had let him sacrifice himself by concealing the vital fact that her brother had murdered a guard to effect his escape.  Fool that he had been, he had stumbled into a trap, and she had let him do it without a word of warning.  Wild, chaotic thoughts crowded his brain furiously.

But the voice with which he addressed them was singularly even and colorless.

“I am a stranger to this country.  I was born in Tennessee, brought up in the Panhandle.  I’m an irrigation engineer by profession.  This is my vacation.  I’m headed now for the Mal Pais mines.  Friends of mine are interested in a property there with me and I have been sent to look the ground over and make a report.  I never heard of Kinney till to-day.  You’ve got the wrong man, gentlemen.”

“We’ll risk it,” laughed one brutally.  “Bring that riata, Tom.”

Neill did not struggle or cry out frantically.  He stood motionless while they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat.  They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man.  So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand.  Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear.  His cool eyes were quiet and steady.

“If you want to leave any message for anybody I’ll see it’s delivered,” promised Duffield.

“I’ll not trouble you with any.”

“Just as you like.”

“He didn’t give poor Dave any time for messages,” cried Tom Long bitterly.

“That’s right,” assented another with a curse.

It was plain to the victim they were spurring their nerves to hardihood.

“Who’s that?” cried one of the men, pointing to a rider galloping toward them.

The newcomer approached rapidly, covered by their weapons, and flung himself from his pony as he dragged it to a halt beside the group.

“Steve Fraser,” cried Duffield in surprise, and added, “He’s an officer in the rangers.”

“Right, gentlemen.  Come to claim my prisoner,” said the ranger promptly.

“Y’u can’t have him, Steve.  We took him and he’s got to hang.”