The man laughed without cordiality.  “Seeing as I have owned it three years I allow I have some right.”

“What’s the use of talking?  He’s the man we want, broke in another impatiently.

“Who is the man you want?” asked their prisoner.

“You’re the man we want, Jim Kinney.”

“Wrong guess.  My name is Larry Neill.  I’m from the Panhandle and I’ve never been in this part of the country till two days ago.”

“You may have a dozen names.  We don’t care what you call yourself.  Of course you would deny being the man we’re after.  But that don’t go with us.”

“All right.  Take me back to Fort Lincoln, or take me to the prison officials.  They will tell you whether I am the man.”

The leader of the party pounced on his slip.  “Who mentioned prison?  Who told you we wanted an escaped prisoner?”

“He’s give himself away,” triumphed the one edged Tom.  “I guess that clinches it.  He’s riding Maloney’s hawss.  He’s wounded; so’s the man we want.  He answers the description—­ gray eyes, tall, slim, muscular.  Same gun—­ automatic Colt.  Tell you there’s nothin’ to it, Duffield.”

“If you’re not Kinney, how come you with this hawss?  He stole it from a barn in Fort Lincoln last night.  That’s known,” said the leader, Duffield.

The imperilled man thought of the girl bing toward the border with her brother and the remembrance padlocked his tongue.

“Take me to the proper authorities and I’ll answer questions.  But, I’ll not talk here.  What’s the use?  You don’t believe a word I say.”

“You spoke the truth that time,” said one.

“If you ever want to do any explaining now’s the hour,” added another.

“I’ll do mine later, gentlemen.”

They looked at each other and one of them spoke.

“It will be too late to explain then.”

“Too late?”

Some inkling of the man’s hideous meaning seared him and ran like an ice-blast through him.

“You’ve done all the meanness you’ll ever do in this world.  Poor Dave Long is the last man you’ll ever kill.  We’re going to do justice right now.”

“Dave Long!  I never heard of him,” the prisoner repeated mechanically.  “Good God, do you think I’m a murderer?”

One of the men thrust himself forward.  “We know it.  Y’u and that hellish partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate.  But y’u made a mistake when y’u come to Fort Lincoln.  He lived there before he went to be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary.  I’m his brother.  These gentlemen are his neighbors.  Y’u’re not going back to prison.  Y’u’re going to stay right here under this cottonwood.”

If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign of it.  His gray eye passed from one to another of them quietly without giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.

“You’re going to lynch me then?”