“You’ll owe me a heap more than that before the night’s over.”

“Your intentions were good then, I expect.  Being shy a trigger finger spoils a man’s aim.”

“Not always.”

“Didn’t like to risk another shot from Bald Knob, eh?  Must be some discouraging to hit only once out of three times at three hundred yards, and a scratch at that.”

The convict swore.  “I’ll not miss this time, Mr. Lieutenant.”

“You’d better not, or I’ll take you back to the penitentiary where I put you before.”

“You’ll never put another man there, you meddling spy,” Struve cried furiously.

“I’m not so sure of that.  I know what you’ve got against me, but I should like to know what kick your friends have coming,” the ranger retorted.

“You may have mine, right off the reel, Mr. Fraser, or whatever you call yourself.  You came into this valley with a lie on your lips.  We played you for a friend, and you played us for suckers.  All the time you was in a deal with the sheriff for you know what.  I hate a spy like I do a rattlesnake.”

It was the man Yorky that spoke.  Steve’s eyes met his.

“So I’m a spy, am I?”

“You know best.”

“Anyhow, you’re going to shoot me first, and find out afterward?”

“Wrong guess.  We’re going to hang you.”  Struve, unable to keep back longer his bitter spleen, hissed this at him.

“Yes, that’s about your size, Struve.  You can crow loud now, when the odds are six to one, with the one unarmed and tied at that.  But what I want to know is—­ are you playing fair with your friends?  Have you told them that every man in to-night’s business will hang, sure as fate?  Have you told them of those cowardly murders you did in Arizona and Texas?  Have you told them that your life is forfeit, anyway?  Do they know you’re trying to drag them into your troubles?  No?  You didn’t tell them that.  I’m surprised at you, Struve.”

“My name’s Johnson.”

“Not in Arizona, it isn’t.  Wolf Struve it is there, wanted for murder and other sundries.”  He turned swiftly from him to his confederates.  “You fools, you’re putting your heads into a noose.  He’s in already, and wants you in, too.  Test him.  Throw the end of that rope over the limb, and stand back, while he pulls me up alone.  He daren’t—­ not for his life, he daren’t.  He knows that whoever pulls on that rope hangs himself as surely as he hangs me.”

The men looked at each other, and at Struve.  Were they being led into trouble to pay this man’s scores off for him?  Suspicion stirred uneasily in them.

“That’s right, too.  Let Johnson pull him up,” Slim Leroy said sullenly.

“Sure.  You’ve got more at stake than we have.  It’s up to you, Johnson,” Yorky agreed.

“That’s right,” a third chipped in.

“We’ll all pull together, boys,” Struve insinuated.  “It’s only a bluff of his.  Don’t let him scare you off.”