Black Sundown
by
Frank Shaul


By the same author Sixgun Bait Uneasy Range Saddle Pard

BLACK SUNDOWN

by FRANK SHAUL

ROBERT HALE .  LONDON

Frank Shaul 1964 First published in Great Britain 1964

Reprinted 1983 ISBN 0 7090 1243 8

Robert Hale Limited Clerkenwell House Clerkenwell Green

London EC1R OHT

Printed in Great Britain by Photobooks (Bristol) Ltd.

and bound by W.B.C. Bookbinders Ltd.

Chapter One

IT WAS A LITTLE cooler in the shade of the trees.  The seven dusty
riders dismounted tiredly and, loosening girths, dropped down to rest
in the brush.  They were an oddly assorted bunch, and Ashley Hollister,
their undisputed leader because of his gun skill and experience on the
owl hoot trails, was justly proud of them.  They were a good gang, he
thought, and they were doing well.  That fact would be corroborated by
any one of the half dozen posses searching for them along the
Sweetwater.

The fact that they were a good criminal team was a tribute to
Hollister's qualities of leadership.  He ruled the gang with an iron
hand; a desperate outlaw among killers, a tough man who had sprung from
a tough soil.  His segundo.  Trig Forbes, now idly wiping the dust from
his .45, was a short, greasy-skinned man of forty years.  A thick black
moustache adorned his hard, lined face.  Forbes was a merciless hombre
with no scruples.  He had shot a stage line driver in the back on their
last job.

Squint Boomer, small, bow-legged, of maybe fifty years, got up and
fetched his canteen from his saddle horn.  Squint looked ridiculous
with the two sagging gunbelts around his thick middle.  But Squint was
a dangerous man who had ridden the dark trails for thirty years.

Burt Nixtm was a big outlaw whom Hollister didn't like.  Nixon's long
yellow hair was lank and untidy beneath his dirty white Stetson.  One
of Nixon's many failings was a propensity for a pretty face, or just a
face so long as it was female.  Nixon stretched himself out full
length, tipped his hat over his eyes and crossed his legs at the ankle.
Hollister saw a hole in the sole of the man's right boot.

John Clanton came across and sat down beside Hollister.  Despite his
youth Clanton was a sheriff killer with an unnatural hatred for all
lawmen.  Hollister smiled wryly.  Clanton was the only member of the
gang who was dissatisfied with the way the gang was run.  He was all
the time urging for bigger and better jobs.

"What time we moving in, Ash?"  Clanton asked, his ruggedly handsome
young face caked with dust.

"What do you figure we'll pick up on this one?"

"I'll tell you when I've counted it, Clan," Hollister retorted, his
brown eyes probing the big face of Frank Palmer, the knife man  Palmer
wore a Colt's .45 on his right hip, but the bearded giant with the
light blue eyes preferred to use a knife at short range.  He was a man
belonging to an almost extinct breed of men, and carried four
long-bladed weapons on his person; two at his waist, one in the top of
his right boot and the other in a sheath that nestled between his
massive shoulders, the handle protruding in the proximity of his right
ear.  It was this weapon he could draw and throw faster than most men
could lift a gun.

"We shouldn't be wasting our time doing penny-ante jobs," Clanton
complained.

"There must be plenty of worth-while raids just waiting for smart
operators like us.  You sure there is plenty of dough in this bank?"

"Enough to see us through a couple of months," Hollister said.

"Remind me to tell Nixon he needs a new pair of boots."  He looked at
the seventh member of the gang.

Carl Langham's origins were lost in Europe.  Short and blond haired,
the little killer was on the run from the law.  His wife lay buried in
some obscure graveyard where an angry bullet from his gun had sent her.
Hollister didn't like Langham either.  There was something of the
snake's cold intensity in Langham's sandy coloured eyes.

"How long we gotta stay here?"  Clanton asked.

"You know the plan as well as I do," Hollister rebuked.

"You ask too many questions for the time of day.  Jeez, it's hot.  What
a helluva country this is."

"Yeah."  Palmer's gravelly voice rumbled in his deep chest.

"So we're in the right country, ain't we?  We're all hellions."

No one answered the knife man  Frank Palmer was a man of uncertain
temper, and they all had witnessed some of the giant's bare-handed
murders.  Palmer was strong enough to break the back of a steer with
his beefy hands.

"Better give the hosses a drink," Hollister called.

"We'll be moving out in twenty minutes."

"Won't come too soon for me," said John Clanton.

"It's about time we saw some action.  Outlawing ain't so bad if you can
get used to running and hiding and living like an animal for weeks at a
time.  We never get a real chance to relax and spend some of the dough
we collect."

"We'll take a ride down to Mexico when we've made a pile," Hollister
promised.  He watched the men go to their horses and attend to the
animals.  He pushed out his lips when he saw Frank Palmer unmoved with
his broad back pressed against a tree.

"What about your bronc, Frank?"  he called.

"It needs water."

"It can wait till I get my breath," the six foot six inches giant
growled.

"Why in hell you want to run us like an army outfit for?  I don't like
it.  I had four years of that during the war."

"It's for your own good," Hollister said evenly.

"We depend on each other for survival.  Your best friend is that
four-legged animal over there.  It's certain death to be left afoot in
this country, especially with a posse on your tail."

Palmer heaved himself to his feet, muttering under his breath, and went
to his horse.  Hollister shook his head.  He was going to have trouble
with Frank one of these days.  He wondered how many bullets it would
take to put the big man down for good, for Palmer was built like a
grizzly bear.

"Howcome you won't let me go into that bank with you?"  Clanton
queried.

"All I ever get is holding the horses.  What the hell!  I make some of
these hombres look slow when I pull my smoke pole."

"Yeah," Hollister agreed.

"But they all earned their places with this gang.  You got plenty time,
Clanton.  You can't buy your way in.  Squint and Burt are good boys.  I
wouldn't want anyone else to side me while they're around.  You have to
learn to settle down a bit.  A man's got to be pretty steady inside a
bank when a raid has started.  One slip can turn the whole shebang into
a shooting match, and outlaws usually come off worst in that."

"Have it your way," Clanton said sullenly.

"So I hold the horses."

"Yeah, and you've got my pocket watch.  Give us five minutes no more,
no less inside that bank, then bring the mounts quietly up to the hitch
rail  If we do have to come out shooting I want my horse to be
there."

"I got it roped," Clanton said.

"But I'd rather be inside there with you."

"Some other time."  Hollister got to his feet and stretched.

"Carl," he called, "you and Frank better be moving.  You got the
furthest to go.  Don't forget the orders."

Langham got up and went silently to his horse.  He swung into the hull
with a creaking of leather.  Frank Palmer tightened the cinch of his
great bay and climbed aboard.  Hollister stepped to the head of
Palmer's mount and stroked the animal's muzzle.  He grinned deceptively
at the giant.

"Don't forget," he warned.

"We split up when we get through in the bank.  Cover your tracks before
you head back to the hideout.  And no shooting unless you have to,
savvy?"

"We know our way about, Ash," Langham said, and set his spurs into the
flanks of his mount.  He rode out of the timber with Frank Palmer close
behind.

Hollister wiped his face with his neckerchief, spitting out the dust
that lay in the folds of the cloth.  He went to his mount and picked up
his canteen, automatically shaking it to gauge its contents.  He took
off his hat and poured some water into it, and patted the neck of his
horse while the animal drank.  When the hat was empty he clapped it on
the back of his head, then took a couple of mouthfuls of water.

"All right, Trig, your turn."  Hollister went back to the spot where he
had been sitting.

"Don't forget.  If trouble starts, don't let anyone come in through the
door of the bank.  As soon as Clant brings the horses up you get
mounted and well, you know what to do."

Forbes hauled his heavy body into his saddle.  Sweat was running down
his face in glistening droplets, gathering in his thick moustache.  His
dark eyes were hard and bright.  He tipped his hat to Hollister as he
gigged his mount out of the shade and into the blistering sunshine.

Hollister pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly.  He stared off into
space, seeing nothing, the bones of this raid plain in his mind's eye.
The minutes passed unnoticed, and he sat quietly until it was time to
go.

"Mount up," he ordered suddenly, and the four of them went to their
horses.  They swung into their saddles, riding into line, and moved at
a jogging canter from under the trees.  The power of the sun was heavy
upon their backs as they rode out on the final lap of their journey.

The town of Sutler's Crossing sprawled both sides of the narrow,
turbulent Sweetwater.  Hollister led Clanton, Squint and Burt Nixon in
a clatter, over the small wooden bridge that spanned the water.  They
looked round warily, noting the apparently deserted street, the
loungers in the shade and under awnings, and felt tension grip their
stomachs as they wondered about the raid.  This town could become a
death trap for them if they had to run for it back across the bridge.

Hollister rode to a tie-rail a block from the bank.

Already he had spotted Trig Forbes leaning against a post across the
street from the bank, and entering the street from the other end came
Langham and Frank Palmer.  Hollister grinned exultantly.  It was going
according to plan.

He handed his reins to John Clanton, and stepped on to the boardwalk to
wait for Squint Boomer and Burt Nixon.  When the two men joined him he
waited for Clanton to get moving with their horses, and the young
outlaw, still mounted, rode along the street, leading three horses, and
turned into an alley this side of the bank.  Hollister nodded.  With
proper timing, Clanton would reappear on the street in front of the
bank with the horses as the raid reached its crooked climax.  He nodded
to his two companions and they moved along the slat walk with jingling
spurs.

Outside the bank Hollister paused and glanced around.  Forbes,
opposite, was carefully studying the street from under the dusty brim
of his tipped forward hat.  Frank Palmer was just riding by on this
side of the street, heading for the sidewalk a dozen yards past the
doorway of the bank.  On the right Carl Langham sat his horse,
ostensibly looking at a paper nailed to a post.

"Let's go."  Hollister's mouth was suddenly grim.  He strode into the
bank with Squint and Burt at his elbows.

He saw immediately that everything was as he had expected.  There stood
the banker and a teller, behind a cage on the long counter facing the
door.  Hollister paced steadily forward, knowing without looking that
Squint was now standing by the door.  Nixon came level with Hollister,
and they drew their .455 as they reached the counter.  The banker
turned with a look of enquiry on his face, and Hollister smiled thinly
when the man's expression turned to alarm at sight of their naked
guns.

"This is a holdup," Hollister said quietly.

"Just stand still and you won't get hurt."

The two men obeyed quickly.  Hollister menaced them with his gun. Nixon
moved around the counter and slapped the bodies of both men, feeling
for weapons.  He picked up a Colt from under the counter and stuck it
into his belt.  He pulled out a small sack from inside the front of his
shirt, unfolded it, and threw it at the teller.

"Fill it," he commanded, "and make it fast.  You're standing on the
edge of hell, feller."

Hollister moved around the counter.  He prodded the banker and backed
the man away, taking a sack from the inside of his shirt as Nixon had
done.  He slapped it at the man, who took it and began filling it with
money without waiting to be told.  Hollister smiled.  This was too
easy.  He glanced at the clock on the wall.  In exactly two minutes
Clanton would show out front with their horses.

The two sacks were filled and their necks tied.

"Your sack, Squint," Hollister called, and the old outlaw came
bow-legged to the cage.  Nixon took one of the filled sacks and Boomer
took the other.  They stood silent while the banker emptied the
contents of a safe into the third sack.  Hollister checked the time.

"Okay," he said.

"Tie that sack.  Take it, Squint."

The old outlaw holstered his gun and took the third sack.  Hollister
struck savagely with the barrel of his gun and the banker sprawled
heavily, spilling blood from a deep gash that opened up in his left
temple.  The teller opened his mouth to shout his fear and Nixon
slugged him.

"That'll do," Hollister said.

"Come on, over to the door.  Give me one of those.  Squint.  You'll
need a free hand in case there's shooting."

"There's Clanton now," said Nixon, peering through the window.

"Let's get out of here."

Hollister took a last look around, and satisfied, followed the others
to the door.  As he hit the sidewalk he heard the jarring crash of a
shot, and looked up to see John Clanton trigger off another shot across
the street.

In the noisy, echoing second that followed.  Hoi-lister's voice rang
out.

"Hit leather, fellers, and ride like hell."

They ran forward to their mounts.  Clanton had dropped the reins of
their three horses, and the animals were backing away nervously.  Nixon
jumped off the sidewalk, hit the street with great flying strides, and
vaulted into his saddle, a gun in his right hand and a bulging sack of
money in the other.  His mount hit a running stride straight off and
Nixon was away.

Squint Boomer paused to draw his gun, and it was then the townsmen on
the street recovered from their surprise and went into action.  Guns
crashed and slugs crackled through the still air.  Squint got his gun
working as he ran through the dust to his mount.  Then a bullet slammed
into the old outlaw and he went down like a falling tree.

Hollister bent without breaking his stride and grabbed up the rolling
gunny sack with his free hand.  He kept moving, seeing Trig Forbes go
fogging along the centre of the street towards the bridge.  Squint's
nervous horse was nearest to Hollister, and he hurled himself through
the air, legs splitting for the saddle.  He landed squarely in leather
and his spurs sank home.

He leaned forward and snatched up the trailing reins as the terrified
horse hit a fast gallop.  The heavy sacks hampered him, but he had no
intention of dropping them.  He passed Frank Palmer.  The knife man was
blazing away with his Colt, and Hollister called to him to get
moving.

Carl Langham came up fast from behind, having struck his saddle about
the same time as Hollister.  As the outlaw drew level his horse was
shot from under him.  Hollister saw the man kick his feet free of his
stirrups and fall clear of the threshing, mortally wounded animal.
Langham came to his feet in one quick movement and went running for
Hollister's own mount, which was pulling for the other side of the
street away from the gunsmoke.  Langham made it and reached for the
saddle.  Then a bullet took him through the back and he went right over
the kak to fall in a crumpled heap in the smothering dust.

Clanton was twenty yards ahead, half turned in his saddle and one hand
stretched out behind him.  His six-gun boomed three times, and the
bullets slammed past Hollister's head on their way to other targets.

The noise of the shooting was part of the background of Hollister's
awareness.  Already he was wondering what had caused the outbreak.  He
saw Frank Palmer come up on his left, and he tossed one of the sacks he
was carrying across to the giant outlaw.  Palmer had let his mount run
full out.  He caught the sack deftly and clamped his teeth upon the tie
end.  The big man's eyes were wild and brimming with violence.  The gun
in Palmer's hand boomed twice, and a townsman on the sidewalk crumpled
and fell.

Clanton was hammering over the bridge, Hollister drew his gun.  Two men
were coming out of an alley to see what the shooting was about, and one
of them was carrying a shot-gun.  In a couple of seconds the street
would be swept with heavy fire.

Hollister fired swiftly, aiming instinctively.  The nearer of the two
men jacknifed and stuck his face into the dust.  The other threw down
his gun, ran a couple of paces on buckling legs, then slid into the
prone position.  One of his legs was twitching as Hollister thundered
by.

With rattling hooves Hollister made the bridge.  A few more yards and
he would be at full stretch on the open trail.  He shoved his gun back
into leather and turned to survey the smoky street.  He saw Langham in
a lifeless heap, huddled in the dust.  Several townsmen were down, and
so were three horses.  Squint Boomer lay dead in front of the bank. The
townsmen were moving into the open now, and a dozen guns blazed
madly.

Hollister swung round to face his front, thinking it was long range now
for a short gun, and a bullet thudded into his back with terrific
impact.  He shouted aloud as terrible pain bored right through him. His
breath was driven from his lungs.  He swayed in his saddle as shock
exploded in his brain, and a great black pit suddenly opened up to
engulf him.  The sack slipped from his nerveless fingers, and he tried
desperately to save it.  But it was gone, rolling under the fleeting
hooves of his mount and then lying remotely in the billowing dust that
speckled the sun-dappled afternoon.

The world turned dark.  Hollister fell forward upon the neck of his
mount, twisting his fingers in the long mane, knowing his only chance
of getting away was to remain in the saddle.  He closed his eyes and
forced himself to hang on.

Frank Palmer turned once to glance at him, but the big outlaw did not
swerve or alter speed.  It was the law among them that they did not
stay for the wounded.  Far ahead of the big man, Hollister saw Forbes
and Nixon travelling fast together, with Clanton riding furiously' to
catch them.

Hollister's mount slowed, troubled by the unusual position of its
strange rider, and the outlaw leader urged the animal on with harsh
curses.  He was dropping behind the others and soon, very soon, a posse
would come spilling out of Sutler's Crossing to take up the chase.

Pain was like a heavy weight inside him.  It bubbled like coffee over a
fire as it ran through his veins.  Sickness raked him.  He felt thick
blood in his throat.  Shot through, he decided painfully, and spat to
rid himself of the salty gore that flooded his mouth.

The others were now far ahead.  Hollister tried to turn in his saddle
to look for signs of pursuit, but the effort was too much for him.  He
nearly fell from the saddle, and felt his clamped fingers slipping
through the sweaty mane.  It needed all his concentration to remain
aboard his hull, and he forced his weakening legs to grip his mount's
heaving barrel.  His blood pounded in his ears, and dribbled from the
wound in his back.  He felt it warm and sticky as it trickled down his
spine, staining his clothes, spreading thickly in the area of the
wound.

He peered with clouding eyes at the trail ahead.  It was empty.  His
gang was gone.  They had separated as instructed.  Later they would
meet again and share the loot.  But Carl Langham and Squint Boomer
would not be there, and neither would Ashley Hollister.

Alone on the trail, with pursuit now being organised in the raided
town, Hollister forced his dazed mind to function.  He had to get into
hiding.  Weakness was pulling at him from inside, undermining his
strength and iron will.  He swayed alarmingly with every jolting step,
clinging tenaciously, but fearing that each stride of his willing horse
would be the last.  He knew that if he fell to the ground he would not
be able to get up again.

Presently he came to a gully and turned the horse into it, gasping for
air as they moved through the banked up heat.  The sun was merciless
and unrelenting in its power.  Dark spots floated before Hollister's
eyes.  He kept talking to the horse, urging it on, realising that he
had little enough time in which to hole up before the vengeful
townsmen, knowing the entire country like they knew a dog's hind leg,
swarmed out to look for sign.

The gully led into timber which thickened into near impassability.  One
thing, he thought painfully, the heat was less intense under the trees.
He cried aloud at times as the jolting animal threw pain into him. The
jagging stabs of agony tore into his very soul.  He felt as if he'd
been transfixed by a red hot arrow that was melting slowly into his
wound.  The pain spread through him in cruel darts, eating through his
body with the fury of a prairie fire.  He laid his hot, dusty face
against the pulsating neck of his mount, clung with stiffened fingers
and knees, and let the horse go on unguided.

After a time he was no longer aware that he travelled in a saddle now
messy with his blood.  He slipped into a world of half light, half
dream, and did not know, was not aware that he was still bleeding
copiously.  Time passed unheeded.  He fell heavily from the saddle when
the horse stopped suddenly, and his senses left him, taking with them
the nagging pain which had made a home in his shattered body.

Chapter Two

HE CAME SLOWLY out of the blackness like a drunken cowboy feeling his
way along an unfamiliar trail.  Pain reigned supreme over him.  Fire
burned in his chest and along his spine.  A raging thirst tormented his
throat.  He could dimly hear a voice calling out, and realised that it
was his own.  He opened his eyes.  Everywhere was in complete darkness.
He lay still, trying to recollect his scattered senses.

By degrees he remembered everything that had happened.  He had to
breathe shallowly to avoid aggravating his wound, and his weak and
trembling fingers explored gently in the darkness.  He had received
attention.  His chest was tightly bandaged, and his boots were not on
his feet.  Had he been arrested?  He wondered if one of the inevitable
posses had found him.  His hands groped over the surrounding area, and
he found that he was lying on a bed of twigs, over which a deerskin had
been stretched.  He fell asleep wondering.

There followed a nightmare time of pain and fever.  He sweated and
shivered alternately, but always there was pain living furiously in his
body.  He shouted in delirium, and struggled with a pair of strong arms
that held him firmly upon his back.  Thirst attacked him incessantly as
he sweated away the moisture in his body, and at times cool water
trickled down his throat and sponged Jiis face and neck.  Sometimes a
spoon was forced between his chattering teeth and some kind of broth
was fed into him .. .

He began opening his eyes.  His strength returned, slowly at first,
then quickly, for he was a tough man who had led a completely rugged
outdoor life for the best part of his years.  He saw the big figure of
a man sometimes bending over him.  But most of the time it was a woman
who tendered him.  It was always dark in whatever building it was they
were holding him, so he couldn't see faces.  But a cool, soft hand at
times touched his forehead.

Hollister had no way of knowing how many days had passed since the bank
raid, but one day he opened his eyes and all haziness was gone.  There
was still a core of pain inside his body.  His legs felt drained of all
strength.  But he was, for the first time since he had been shot, wide
awake and fully conscious.  He lay for a long time trying to get his
mind working normally again.

When the woman came next to feed him she pushed aside a flap that let
blinding daylight flooding into his eyes.  He closed his eyes until
they became accustomed to this unfamiliar brightness, then saw that he
was lying in a tent.  He kept blinking in the strong light, trying to
get a look at the woman's face.

"Well," she said, when she saw he was awake.

"You've come back to us at last.  Joe said you'd die.  But I told him I
could save you."

"Who's Joe?"  he asked thickly.

"My brother.  He's a woodsman."

"Where am I?"  He looked into her face, seeing a youngish woman between
twenty and thirty.  She had a small, neat figure clothed in rough,
faded blue pants and a man's blue denim shirt.  Her black hair was
straight and dragged into a knot at the back of her shapely head.

"Who are you?"  he demanded.

"I'm Kitty Adams.  I found you twelve days ago lying in our clearing. I
got the fright of my life when I came upon you, covered in blood.
You've got a nasty wound."

"Twelve days ago," he mused.

"Well, I reckon I'll live now, thanks to you, Kitty.  Where am I
hit?"

"In the back.  It broke a rib and came out high in the shoulder. You're
lucky the bullet came out.  I think you would have died if I'd had to
poke for it.  You're on the dodge, ain't you?"

"Dodging the law?"  His fever bright eyes studied her tanned face.

"Yeah.  I'm an outlaw."

"I guessed you were.  You talked a lot when the fever had you.  Joe
heard tell that the bank in Suiter's Crossing was raided.  We figured
you were one of them."

"The boss.  What happened in town?  How much was stolen from the bank?
How many men were killed?"

"Four men got away, and the posses are looking for a fifth who was
hit."

"Meaning me?"

"Yes."  She studied his face as she came across to where he lay.

"There were two bandits killed and four townsmen.  The bank says it
lost forty thousand dollars."

"Where's your brother?  Is he going to turn me in?  I guess there's a
nice reward on my head now."

"No."  Her voice rebuked him sharply.

"We've got no love for the law."  Her face shadowed, and she sighed
deeply.

"We got a raw deal from the law.  My dad had .a homestead north of
Sutler's Crossing.  We were evicted.  My father tried to fight and they
killed him.  Joe wouldn't fight.  He said it would be hopeless.  The
law ain't for the likes of us.  Joe was right.  They killed Pa and
drove us out.  You'll be free to ride on when you're well enough,
Mister " "Hollister," he said.

"Ash Hollister."

"I've heard of you.  Do you think you'll be able to sit up?  I've
almost choked you a dozen times."  She slid an arm under him and took
his weight while he eased himself, grunting painfully the while, into a
sitting position.  There was a large tin trunk at his back, and he
rested against it.

"That's better.  Now try to feed yourself.  Don't move around too much
in case you open up the wound.  What you're got to do now is build up
your strength."

She left him while he ate hungrily.  He could hear the food hitting his
stomach as he gulped it down.  She returned with more stew, and he ate
his fill.  When she had cleared away the wreckage of the meal he rasped
his fingers through the black stubble which adorned his face.  It was
past the itching stage now, and he guessed he looked a grim sight.  His
hair was standing on end.

"I'd feel a heap better if I could clean up," he told her.

"You can't get up yet," she told him firmly.

"Give that chest a chance to heal inside.  You're doing nicely."

"Any chance of a posse finding me here?"

"No.  They called at the cabin once.  But your horse is hidden, and
this tent is in the brush out of sight.  You're safe here."

"Where's your brother?  I'd like to thank him."

"He's away at the moment.  He's been moody since Pa was killed.  He
likes to get away on his own sometimes.  He traps to pass the time and
make a little money, and goes off for days on end."

"You mean he leaves you alone?"

"I can take care of myself."  She laughed.

"I can use a gun as well as any man."

He lay down, feeling content and easier than he had done since he'd
stopped the bullet.  He studied the girl's face whenever she came to
him, and he liked what he saw.  He liked the way she talked, and kept
plying her with questions about her former life.  She stayed with him
for longer periods as each day passed, watching him grow stronger as he
slowly recovered from the wound.

On the first day that she permitted him to get on his feet he dressed
and took a few wobbly steps outside the tent.  He shaved off his
whiskers, wondering at the gaunt, ill-looking face that stared back at
him out of the mirror.

"You're a handsome man," Kitty declared when she saw his clean-shaven
face for the first time, and a pang struck through her as she realised
that he was well on the trail back to full health.  A feeling of
sympathy for this big outlaw had gradually swelled in the girl's lonely
heart, and she had begun to dread the time he would take his leave.

Hollister was drawn to the girl, apart from the obvious reason that she
had saved his life.  A lonely man himself, he sensed the loneliness
that was a part of her, and could see emotions rousing inside her,

shining out of her eyes.  She would be pretty, he knew, if she changed
her rough clothing for a dress.  Something undefinable was raising its
strange head in his mind, and he realised that he should start thinking
about rifling on.  He broached the subject and watched the fleeting
emotions that crossed her soft face.

"You're not well enough to ride yet," she said.

"You'll have a long way to go, and that could be fatal.  You'll undo
all the good work I've done on you.  I think you should stay here until
Joe returns."

"He's been gone a long time.  A week, isn't it?"

"Yes.  He's never been away so long before.  But Joe can take care of
himself.  He may show up in a day or two."

"Okay.  I'll wait till he shows."  Hollister sat outside the cabin with
the girl, soaking himself in the hot sunshine.  The woods were deathly
silent, and light and shadow blended beneath the branches.  It was
mid-afternoon.  He felt almost as good as new.  Another two or three
days would see him back to full strength.

"I'm going to miss you round here, Ash," Kitty said softly.

"I didn't realise until you came how lonely it is out here.  I suppose
you're going back to your gang."

"I've got nowhere else to go.  I'm an outlaw.  I can't choose where I
want to settle.  I can't even settle.  They got pictures of me on every
lawman's notice board this side of the Mississippi.  Someone always
recognises me, and I have to make a run for it."

"What a hard, cruel life," she cried, pity for him showing in her dark
eyes.

"Whatever made you turn crooked?"

"The war."  His tones were even, his eyes hard and glittering.

"Lot's of men couldn't settle down after all the killing was over.  I
was one of them.  All I found when I got back home was a patch of
burned ground where the house had stood.  A man can't rebuild on ashes.
Memories hurt too much if the cuts are deep."

"You had a wife, children?"  she ventured.

"Yeah."  He sighed as if the memory still hurt.

"It happened a long time ago, but it still hurts."

"So you ran away from the past, and you're still running.  You're
living by the gun, and you almost died by it."

"I shall die by it one day," he said heavily.

"Are you trying to convert me, Kitty?"

"No," she replied wisely.

"You're in too deep now.  But be careful.  I'd hate to think that the
trouble I had saving your life was for nothing.  No doubt I'll be able
to follow your career in the newspapers."

He smiled wryly, and glanced sideways at her.  The sun was filling her
eyes with something more than brightness, and he could see that her
lightness was forced.  Hollister felt something tug at his emotions. He
reached out a hand and touched her arm, running his fingers lightly
over her flesh.  She quivered, and leaned towards him in convulsive
movement.  He heard the breath go out of her in unsteady sigh, and her
head touched his shoulder.

Hollister put his arms around her, grimacing at the pain he loosed in
his chest.  A tingling sensation played in the pit of his stomach.  He
tilted her face and kissed her gently, without passion, and she lay
submissive in his embrace.  Then he released her, shaking his head as
he fought the urges that rose under his flesh.

"I shouldn't have done that, Kitty.  It will be harder for me to leave
now."

"Then you do feel something for me," she whispered.  Her eyes were
dreamy and she swayed towards him.

"There is softness in you, Ash, that I'll bet no one else knows
about."

"I guess you're right.  I was once a decent man.  I loved my wife and
daughter.  I respected people and things.  , ou can't throw those
feelings away just like that."  He snapped his fingers.

"I've had to build a wall between my inner self and what I have become.
It's a hard, thick wall, but it's full of holes.  I feel pain sometimes
at the way my life has turned out.  I've known nothing but violence for
a long time.  I often wish the bullet that will put out my light will
hurry up and find me."

"Please don't say that."  Her fingers found their way to his lips.

"Ash," her tones deepened, "take me away with you when you go.  I can't
take this loneliness any more.  Not after knowing you.  Please let me
ride out with you."

"You don't know what you're asking," he said gently.

"You couldn't stand my pace.  I know no peace.  There's always someone
pointing a finger at me, or a gun.  I usually sleep by day and ride at
night.  I know fear, discomfort and sudden death.  I have no friends,
and every man is an enemy.  I wouldn't start to think about taking you
along, Kitty."

"I love you.  Ash," she told him proudly.

"I could make your life a little easier, bring to you some of the
comforts a man needs."

"That would only make me soft," he protested.

"An outlaw's life is hard and ruthless.  There's no room for love in
me."

"There could be if you gave it a chance."  She closed her eyes and
pressed her face against his bandaged chest.

"With the right woman, Ash, you could even give up this wild life and
settle down."

"You think you're the right woman?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He took her hand and caressed it.  looking deeply into her moist brown
eyes.  There was despair in his eyes, fighting with hope and love.  Her
heart was near to bursting.  He could feel it pounding against his
chest.

"You're a good girl, Kitty.  Too good for the likes of me.  I'd bring
you nothing but trouble.  You should get out of this wilderness and mix
with other folk.  Maybe you could find someone who could give you the
love and care you deserve.  Don't think about throwing your life away
on a no-good like me."

"I'd give ten years of my life just to spend a month with you," she
declared.

"Ash, I think God sent you to me when you stumbled in here."  She clung
to him.

"Don't leave me now.  I can't bear this stillness.  Joe loves the
woods.  He understands this life.  But I can't take it any more.  You
say you owe me something for saving your life.  Well, if you want to
return the favour take me with you when you go."

He stared at her for a long time, breathing shallowly.  He felt the
warmth of passion steal along his veins, and tried to kill it before it
could enter his heart.

"I'm a lonely man," he said.

"That's your trouble.  You're lonely.  Kitty.  You'd forget me the
instant you clapped eyes on another man.  I'll take you into a town and
put you on the right trail to curing your loneliness.  But we should
let it lie there."

"No," she insisted.

"I must go with you."

He eased himself upright, feeling his strength playing in his body.  He
looked down at his hip, noting the absence of his gun, and he was
surprised that he had not missed its considerable weight.  He had never
stepped out of a building before without a gun on him, or a rifle in
his hands.

"You know something," he told her.

"I just might be able to settle down as an honest man.  I wonder how I
would' take to hard work again?  It's been a long time.  The only
things I've lifted in the past ten years have been payrolls and gold
shipments.  But I might be able to do it at that."  He looked at her, a
far-away expression in his dark eyes.

"I think I'll go sack down for a bit.  I don't want to overdo it.  Give
me a call if your brother rides in.  I'd like to have a talk with
him."

He went slowly to the tent and lowered himself painfully on to the bed
she had made for him.  He closed his eyes, beginning to sweat in the
closeness of the air trapped under the canvas.  Spasms of pain
frolicked through his wound, and he grunted as he moved in search of
easement.  He tried in vain to sleep, and at last gave up trying and
went out into the darkening woods.

Kitty found him standing in the clearing looking up at the reddened
sky, his face calm and mobile.  She wondered if he was finding peace
within, and stood watching until his face became shadowed and
indistinct.  Hollister finally sensed her presence and turned swiftly,
an oath rising to die on his lips as the movement gave him pain.

"I've been watching you for a long time," she told him.

"You're changing now you're away from your gang."

"That's why I must leave here.  I wouldn't last five minutes with men
like Frank Palmer and Trig Forbes if I turned soft."

"It's hard to believe that you are an outlaw.  You're not a rough type.
I think there's gentleness in you, Ash."

"You want me to do a song and dance?"  he grinned, and she laughed with
him.  She moved closer with the graceful simplicity of a young child
and took hold of his left arm.  He glanced down at her, peering at her
face.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five, I believe.  Let me try and guess your age."  She paused
and studied his features.

"What in this light?  You'll make me an old man."

"I'd say around thirty-five."

"Thirty-one," he amended.

"But I feel a lot older than that."  He turned to her, feeling her
nearness pulling at his instincts.  Her face was just a pale blur in
the twilight.  Around them were sounding the strangely muted calls of
birds settling down for the night.  An overwhelming stillness seemed to
come pressing down from the rich, dark velvet sky.

"Look up there," she commanded, pointing upwards to where myriads of
apparently wildly scattered stars pricked the mysterious heavens.

"Isn't the western sky beautiful?"

"All nature is beautiful.  Only Man brings indecency and conflict to
the world."

She moved closer until her shoulders touched his chest.  He slid his
arms around her, and she sighed and lowered her head until tendrils of
her long, soft hair spread across his face.  A wave of tenderness
surged through him.  He tightened his grasp, grunting with pain, and
she turned her head until their faces were close together.

"I love you," he said hoarsely.

"Yes," she agreed softly, recognising the emotion that held him.  She
moved, pulling him gently.

"Let's go into the cabin.  It's turning cold out here and I haven't got
my shawl.  It looks like Joe isn't coming home tonight.  He always
comes in before sundown.  If he's late he sleeps in the woods and shows
up around dawn.  You'd better take his bed.  You'll find it much more
comfortable than the tent."

He followed her silently, filled with awe, engulfed by the loneliness
that comes to one living in the vast outside.  Nature was very close to
Man in this country.  They went into the cabin and she lighted the
lamp, and some of the magic died.

"I've broken the spell," she said softly.

"It always happens when I light the lamp.  Some day I'm not going to
let daylight come again ever, and I'll live the rest of my life in the
twilight.  Wasn't that a lovely feeling?  Just standing in the night
with the breath of the woods in your face and peace in your heart.  I'd
hate to live in a city.  All that noise and dirt."

"Yes," he agreed.

"I've seen them.  Give me the wide open spaces every time.  A man
should have enough room to breathe."  He sat down on her bed and
watched her going through the preparations for the evening meal.

"You're a good cook, Kitty," he praised.

"It's been a long time since I ate so well."

"I hope you'll like it long enough to get used to it."  She laughed
gaily.

"Come and sit at the table and I'll wait on you."

They ate together and, all the time she was near him, Hollister could
not keep his eyes off her face.  He found he liked everything about
her; the way she talked, the sound of her voice, the way her eyes
sparkled and her lips parted when she smiled.  At this moment his past
seemed far behind him, and he realised that for the first time in many
a long year he was not subconsciously alert for the furtive step
outside, the ominous click of a gun at his back or the fear that a
posse might be closing in on him.  So this was how an honest,
law-abiding man felt all the time, secure within the law.  He shook his
head in wonderment as he recalled the countless times he had narrowly
escaped death, the hours of tension and extreme fear he had known when
on the run.

"Kitty, you've kind of got me thinking about the other side of the
fence.  I've known nothing but hideouts and robber camps since the war.
My friends have been roughnecks, robbers and killers.  Even the women,
well " He paused, searching for the right words.

"Even the women were different to you.  I thought they were helping me
escape from the hell my life had become.  But I realise now that they
were keeping me down.  I've got to get out of that life.  I've tried
halfheartedly before.  Now I'll make another effort.  If I fail this
time then I'm finished.  I'll be a robber for the rest of my life."

"I'm glad you came here."  She moved around the table and sat beside
him on her bed.

"I hope I have been able to help you get back out of the shadows.
You're a good man, Ash, and you could do a lot with your life if you
had the mind.  When you're really well we can ride out of this place.
The West is a big country.  We could find a place where you're not
known."

"I'd like that," he admitted.

"But it won't be so simple.  I can't leave this part of the country
until I've been back to the hideout.  There's a thing or two to be
settled before I'm through in this neck of the woods.  And I got a lot
of dough cached at the hideout."

"We can't make a fresh start on stolen money," she pointed out.

"Why not?  We've got to have money.  How far do you think we'd get if
we tried without it?  If I took an ordinary riding job, which is all I
know apart from being a robber, I wouldn't make enough to keep you.  We
got, to have that money."

"Let's think about it.  It will be another week before you can sit a
horse without fear of doing damage to your wound."

He agreed with her.  She had great influence with him, and he did not
realise it.  The longer he looked at her the more completely he came
under her spell.  The lonely years behind him had left a great hole in
his emotions, which she ably filled.  Her attentions were bestowed from
a love for him which she had built upon loneliness and pity.  They were
kindred spirits in a harsh world, and each recognised in the other
their own craving for love and compassion.

Lying in the darkness in Joe's bed, Hollister reviewed the whole
situation.  He realised now, in the light of his new feelings for the
girl and her obvious love for him, that his life with the gang had been
becoming intolerable.  He was glad now that he had been wounded, and
thanked the Fates for directing his trail to coincide with the
girl's.

Chapter Three

THREE DAYS PASSED and Hollister strengthened his intention to give up
his unlawful ways.  Alone in the girl's company throughout the quiet
hours of each day, revelling in his new-found feelings and emotions, he
was impatient for the time when he would be completely recovered and
able to put his resolutions into action.  They walked through the woods
by daylight, rejoicing in their own company and the wonderful stillness
that reigned over the timberland.

"I could live this way forever," he told her once as they walked along
a narrow game trail, with the sun lancing through the tall foliage in
golden shafts of brilliance.  He squinted his eyes against the
ever-changing patterns of light and shade, and breathed deeply of the
clean, sweet air.

"Joe's like that," she responded.

"He loves the peacefulness  You can sit out here all day and not hear
one man-made sound.  But I find the solitude a little frightening.  I
always feel that my mind is half asleep."

"That's peacefulness for you," he said.

"There aren't many places left on earth where a man can find peace like
this."

"That's what Joe has always said."  Her face shadowed.

"I'm getting worried about him, Ash.  He's never been gone this long
before.  I hope nothing has happened to him."  She had a sudden mental
picture of her brother lying injured and helpless alone in the
forest.

"Did he say where he was going when he took off?"

"No.  But I've got a feeling he sometimes goes to look at our old
homestead."

"Could he get into trouble there?"

"Only if Will Calthorpe's men saw him.  They're the ones who ran us
out.  If Joe doesn't show up in another couple of days I'd better ride
into town and ask around for him.  Perhaps he's gone in on a bender."

"You got a horse out here?"

"Sure.  That's about all I did get away with."

"I'll ride into Suiter's Crossing with you if you have to go," he
decided.

"It's about time I tried this wound out on horseback.  If I sit around
much longer I'll get soft.  I haven't even had a gun in my hand since I
was shot."

"You wouldn't need it out here even if you wore it," she said.

"Unless you plan on shooting me."

He put his arms around her.

"I shall be eternally grateful to you," he breathed.

"You've changed me from a criminal to a man who aches to be honest."

"But you're not prepared to make a completely fresh start.  You plan on
using stolen money to set yourself up."

"I'm being practical," he told her.

"But don't let us go into that again, Kitty.  I'm a practical man, and
I know I've got no chance of crossing to the good side of the fence if
my pockets are empty.  A man can't keep a woman on ideals.  You can't
buy food with good intentions.  We'll have to do it my way.  We can put
the money into a bank in your name.  Don't forget that I must always
stay in the background."  He paused.

"Are you sure you want to go along with me?  Can you imagine what it
will be like living with an outlaw?  I've always got to watch my back.
I mustn't go into towns where it's likely the local lawmen have my face
on posters.  I must be on my guard night and day.  You'll feel the
strain, Kitty, and it's no joke."

"I won't mind that," she said eagerly.

"We'll take our chances and live each day as it comes.  I've never had
or done anything worthwhile in my life.  So let's take a chance.  Ash.
We've got nothing to lose."

"What will Joe say to that?"

"Joe?"  She paused, and happiness was shining on her eager face.

"Joe will understand.  It will be hard for him, I know, because he
won't leave the woods now.  This is his haven.  But he'll
understand."

Hollister thought about the future.  He would have to take Kitty a long
way before he would judge them safe from prowling lawmen.  The girl sat
with him in the failing afternoon light, holding his hand while they
talked and planned.  A strong feeling bound them both in the same
mental attitude.  To Hollister now his criminal phase was a bad dream.
He shuddered to think of all the unlawful incidents in which he had
participated.  He began to believe that the shock of seeing his home
burned and learning that his family were all dead had thrown him into
some mental blackout from which he was only now recovering.

"I feel like my old self," he told the girl one morning.

"Where's my gun?  We'd better ride out of here."

"I'll get it.  I suppose you must wear it, Ash?"

"I surely must.  It ain't safe for any man to ride abroad these wild
days without a weapon of some sort in his hands.  Maybe in a hundred
years only lawmen will go armed.  But right now I got to wear a gun
whenever I leave the house."

She fetched his gunbelt and .45, and brought cleaning rags, sitting
beside him while he cleaned the gun he had used so notoriously against
the law.  His intent face was bland in the early morning sunshine, his
dark eyes forever flickering across the clearing, piercing the shadows
in the brush, watching for alien movement.

"I think I'd better ride into town today," she remarked.

"Something has happened to Joe.  I'm sure of it.  He should have been
back by now.  He's never been away like this before."

"We'll ride together.  I feel like sitting a horse again."  He stood up
and strapped on the gunbelt, tying down the holster with a thong around
his right leg.  She looked at him critically as he went for their
horses.  He seemed to take on a different personality with that gun,
she decided, and longed for the day he could discard it.  While he
prepared the animals for travel she wrote a short note for Joe, in case
her brother showed up while she was gone into town.  Then she put
provisions into Hollister's saddle bags and rolled two blankets.

"Ready?"  he called, and she went out to him, carrying the things she
had prepared.

"I've left a note for Joe in case he shows up while we're away," she
said, and thanked him as he helped her into the saddle.

"I'll be sore tonight.  I haven't ridden in a long time."

"We'll take it easy," he responded.

"How far is it to town?"

"About twenty miles the way you came, but I know a short cut."

He mounted and gigged his horse beside her, leaning across to kiss her.
She smiled quickly, then had a last look around.  Her face was suddenly
serious as she took the lead along one of the three trails that led out
of the clearing.  Hollister followed closely, savouring his newfound
feelings, wondering if he would have the strength necessary to remain
honest when the hard times that were surely ahead of them came. 
Anyway, he reflected, he was giving it a twirl.  They could put that
down in the book of judgment.

Three hours brought them within sight of Sutler's Crossing.  Hollister
grimaced wryly when he spotted the grove where he and his gang had
rested up before riding into town to rob the bank.  That had been a
month ago, and he shook his head in wonderment at the complete reversal
of his outlook.  One month ago, he thought, he had been an outlaw gang
leader ruthless and dangerous.  Now he wanted nothing more than to fade
into anonymity with Kitty Adams.

"You'd better stay here until I come back," she said, breaking into his
thoughts.

"You might be recognised."

"I'll take that chance.  I've got a feeling sitting me right now which
I figure belongs to every good man, and I want to rub shoulders with a
few honest men to see if I can keep it.  We'll ride in together, Kitty.
I'll go for a drink while you make your enquiries."

"All right, if you think it will be safe for you."

They clattered across the bridge and rode along the quiet street.
Hollister looked about with interest.  It had been a deal noisier the
last time he'd passed along it.  There was the spot where Carl Langham
had gone down, and over there was where Squint Boomer had lost his
brains and his useless life.  The bank was peaceful and still as they
rode by, and Hollister could not resist a glance at the bullet-marked
doorway.

"I'll have a word with the lawmen," Kitty said.

"I'm afraid that something has happened to Joe, and the marshal would
know."

"Okay.  I'll be in the saloon.  Give me a shout from the doorway if you
want me."  Hollister slid out of his saddle and tethered both their
mounts.  He ducked under the tie-rail and bent to kiss her lips.

"Don't be long, sweetheart."

"Be careful," she whispered, and walked across the rutted street to the
law office.

Hollister stepped across the slat-walk and pushed through the batwings
to enter the saloon.  He paused on the threshold, surveying the
interior, and saw several cowhands sitting at a table engrossed in a
game of poker.  He swished through the sawdust and bellied up to the
bar.  When the bartender came to him he ordered a whisky and a beer.

"Stranger in town?"  the tender asked after serving the drinks.

"Could be."  Hollister flipped a silver dollar into the man's hand.

"No offence."  The man got Hollister's change.

"We had the bank robbed just over a month ago.  A thing like that makes
a man question all strangers."

"Yeah.  I guess so."  Hollister downed the whisky and chased it with a
mouthful of beer.

"I heard about the robbery down the trail.  News like that travels a
long way.  Heard tell that two of the robbers were done for."

"And four of the townsmen, including the sheriff.  It was the Hollister
gang.  Someone recognised Squint

Boomer, one of the dead outlaws, as being one of Hollister's gang."

"Bad business.  The country is still more than half wild."

"Yeah.  We could do with a couple of fellers like that Wyatt Earp
everyone is talking about.  You hunting a job?"

"Not right now."  Hollister moved a hand to his chest.

"Recovering from a bad fall.  Bronc stomped me and busted a couple my
ribs.  Sure wasn't my day."

"It can happen to anyone," sympathised the bartender.

"Where'd you ride from?"

"I been resting up in the timber south and west of here.  Met a brother
and sister by the name of Joe and Kitty Adams living in a clearing.
I've been staying with them for a week or so.  Funny thing about that.
Joe Adams ups and rides out and don't come back.  I just rode in with
his sister looking for him.  Do you know Joe?"

"I know of him."  The bartender lowered his voice.

"They had a homestead on Will Calthorpe's 6C7 range until they got run
off."  The tender jerked a thumb at the punchers sitting round the
corner table.

"They're some of Calthorpe's riders.  A real salty bunch.  Joe Adams
got his self killed mebbe ten days ago.  He had a run in with some of
that bunch.  Shorty Fenton ventilated him.  Shorty claimed Adams was
reaching for a gun while the boys were joshing him.  Only thing was Joe
never had a gun on him."

There was no outward change in Hollister's expression as he took in the
tragic news.  He gulped his beer and slid the glass into the keep's
ready hand.

"Thanks," he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"I'd better find Kitty Adams.  She's probably heard about her brother
by now.  This is a bad business.  Was Joe murdered or did this Shorty
Fenton really think he was reaching for a gun?"

"The jury said Shorty wasn't to know that Adams didn't pack a gun.  It
was a cattleman's jury, but that didn't mean a thing.  Shorty wouldn't
have been charged with murder anyway, not with that salty crew over
there to back his play."

Hollister nodded his understanding.  He took his leave of the talkative
barkeep and went out to the sidewalk.  His heart missed a beat when he
spotted Kitty coming across the street, for the expression on her face
told him she had learned of her brother's fate.

The girl was dry-eyed, but she threw herself into Hollister's arms and
began to sob.  Hollister patted her shoulder comfortingly.  He was at a
loss for words, and stared down at her bowed head and shaking
shoulders.  Several passers-by stopped and looked on with some
interest.  Hollister saw a lawman sauntering across the street.  He
raised the girl's head, holding her chin in one gentle, cupped hand.

"Come on, Kitty, let's get out of here.  There's a crowd gathering.  We
don't want to attract too much attention."

She nodded dumbly, and Hollister made a move towards their mounts.  His
alert eyes spotted a very short cowpuncher coming along the sidewalk,
and as Hollister was about to hand Kitty up to her saddle the newcomer
called to them.

"You there.  Hold up a minute."

"It's Shorty Fenton," Kitty gasped.

"He's the one who shot Joe.  Give me your gun.  Ash.  I'm the only
Adams left now, thanks to the 6Cy.  I don't care what they say, Shorty
Fenton murdered my brother.  Every one knew Joe never carried a gun. He
wouldn't fight even when my father was killed."

The girl made a grab at Hollister's Colt.  He held her off, and stood
watching Fenton's progress through the bystanders.  For a little man
Fen ton made big tracks, and Hollister speedily summed up the 6C7
gunman as a man who bullied his way around on the strength of his
reputation.

"I been wanting to have a word with you," Fenton said to the girl,
stopping several paces away and teetering back and forth on his high
heels like he was the cock of the walk.

"I guess you've heard that I killed your no account brother."

"I heard you murdered him," Kitty flamed.

"I'd gut-shoot you if I were a man."

"Mebbe it's a good thing for you that you're not," Fenton returned, his
cold eyes flickering over Hollister.

"Who's this, another two-bit farmer?"

"You'd better watch your step," Hollister said thinly.

"My name ain't Joe Adams, and I'm wearing a gun."

An unholy light burst to brilliance in the little gunman's pale eyes.
He glanced around at the crowd, who were already pushing out of range.
Hollister saw the cowpunchers who had been playing cards in the saloon
come jostling out to the sidewalk.  Fenton seemed to swell as he puffed
out his chest, and Hollister realised that the man must have made
himself quite a reputation locally.

"If you're figuring on taking sides with the Adams's," Fenton said,
raising his voice for all to hear, "then I'm the man you want to see.
I'm troubleshooter for the 6C7."

"You got a big mouth for a little man, hombre," Hollister said.  He
watched the lawman who had crossed the street take up a position behind
the other 6C7 men.

"Troubleshooter is a big new name for killer, ain't it?  You knew Joe
Adams never packed a gun."

"Did I now?  Well I can see the one you're toting.  Make a play for
it."

"Mister, you'll never see it leave leather," Hollister said tightly,
his eyes narrowing.

"I've come across your sort before.  You've shot a couple of old men
and got yourself a reputation.  Well you'll find it harder to live up
to a rep than it is to make one.  Kitty, back out of this.  I'm taking
it up for Joe."

The girl stepped into the street, her face pale and set.  Hollister
never took his eyes off the little gunman's sneering features.  Behind
Fenton the rest of the 6Cj crew were tense.  Hollister figured the
marshal at their backs would keep them out of the fight.

"I'm giving you the edge, mister," Hollister said.

"I don't like your kind.  You never make a play unless the game's
stacked in your favour.  If you're half the man you think you are
you'll start pulling that iron."

Fenton backed off a couple of slow steps.  There was a contemptuous
grin on his thin lips.  Bystanders moved quickly out of line with the
ease of much practice.  Hollister stood still, his right hand relaxed
at his side.  He could feel the butt of his Colt touching the inside of
his wrist.  The sun was hot upon his shoulders, and sweat was beginning
to gather at the band inside his hat.  An involuntary shiver tremored
along his spine and a shadow crossed his face.  Fenton was poised
twelve feet away.

The silence that held sway over the tense scene could almost be felt.
Hollister heard the loud ticking of the wall clock inside the saloon.
He pushed the tip of his tongue between his suddenly dry lips.  His
eyes were centred upon Shorty Fenton with all his concentration.

Fenton suddenly flowed into action.  One moment he was standing
immobile, and the next his .45 was flashing upward like a glint of
sunlight.  Hollister's lips thinned, turning his mouth into a narrow
gash.  Without conscious thought he was lifting his own gun, his
reflexes triggered by the first spurting movement of Fenton's gun hand
As the weapon came clear of the holster his ready thumb eared back the
hammer.  Then the weapon exploded with an overwhelming crash that set
echoes yammering all over town.

The bystanders flinched, wide eyed and tense, ready to duck flying
lead.  Those who knew Fenton fully expected to see the calm-eyed
stranger blasted to hell and gone.  But it was the 6C7 gunman who
jerked backwards under boring lead that smashed through his breast bone
and splintered into his murderous heart.  Fenton tottered, then
jack-knifed, and the wondering spectators were astonished to see that
Fenton hadn't cleared leather with his infamous gun.

Hollister was like ice inside.  He recocked his gun instinctively and
held the muzzle pointing at the other 6Cj riders.  He did not look at
Shorty Fenton.  He had known in the instant his big gun fired just
where the bullet would strike the gunman.  For several seconds no one
moved, all shocked by the noise of the shot and the presence of death.
Fenton's boot-heels rattled momentarily on the boardwalk as he gave up
the ghost, and somewhere on the back lots of the town a dog howled
miserably.

"Anyone else while I'm at it?"  Hollister demanded, his eyes now
slitted and mean, and each of the 6C7 punchers thought the big gun in
the stranger's hand had singled him out for the next killing shot.

"I'm in the mood now if someone wants to take it up for Fenton.  I'm
standing in Joe Adams' boots."

"There'll be no more shooting inside of town limits," ordered Jhe
lawman standing behind the grouped 6Cy riders, "unless I do it.  Put up
your gun, stranger, and mount up.  Fork your bronc out've this country
if you want to stay healthy."

"Sure thing.  I just want to make sure these fellers know where they
stand.  I'll take them all on one at a time if you've got the room to
bury them."

"They're leaving town right now," the marshal said.

"Go on home, fellers, and take Fenton's carcase with you.  Don't come
back unless you want to tangle with the law.  We've had enough of
Calthorpe's roughshod tactics round here."

The cowhands made a concerted move to their mounts, and two of them
picked up the small body of the dead gunman and draped it over the
saddle of a suddenly nervous horse.  Hollister stood watching carefully
as the grim-faced riders moved away along the dusty street.  He still
held his gun in his hand.

"Now break it up," the lawman called to the silent crowd.

"It's all over.  Get about your business.  There'll be no more
gunplay."

Hollister studied the youngish lawman as the marshal came towards him.
He knew he would be in a tight spot if the man had seen his face on one
of the many reward bills and remembered him.  That was how close
Hollister lived to exposure and arrest, or sudden violent death.

"You've done the town a favour," the marshal said.

"That was the neatest bit of killing I ever witnessed.  Fenton has
stood on the neck of Suiter's Crossing for too long.  Now you'd better
watch your step.  Calthorpe won't let you get away with this.  That's
why I advise you to get out of this country fast."

"I shan't go until I'm ready," Hollister said grimly, reloading the
spent chamber of his gun and sliding the lethal weapon back into its
holster.

"I don't scare easy, and I ain't afraid of a pack of two-bit gun hands
He glanced at Kitty.  The girl was still spellbound in the throes of
shock, one hand gripping the tie-rail for support.

"What do you figure now?"  he asked her, and his words made her
flinch.

"Let's go back home," she said despairingly, and turned abruptly to
climb into her saddle.

Hollister nodded and stepped around the lawman.  He put one foot into
his stirrup and swung up into his hull.  His cold eyes swept the still
watching group of townsfolk as he wheeled his mount and rode at a
walking pace beside the silent girl.  The last time I rode this way, he
thought remotely, I stopped a bullet in the back.  They clattered
across the bridge and moved along the empty trail.

Chapter Four

"ASH, WHY DON'T you get your gang and go flush out Will Calthorpe and
his crew of killers?"  Kitty Adams reined in and stared at Hollister.
The girl's eyes were flashing with hatred, mirroring the tumultuous
emotions that flamed through her.

Hollister stared into the girl's moist eyes, recognising grief in their
dark depths, and considered the question while their glances locked.
Then he shook his head and saw bleakness shadow her face.

"No, Kitty.  This Calthorpe has got himself a pretty tough crew around.
He will have maybe twenty riders on his payroll, and each one of them
punchers will fight to the death for their boss.  It would be courting
trouble to range against them.  You'll have to cut your losses and give
Calthorpe best.  It's galling, but I've been in this kind of situation,
and I know from bitter experience what's best to do."

The girl looked away for a moment, and Hollister twisted in his saddle
to stare back at Suiter's Crossing.  Everything that possibly could,
had gone wrong back there, he thought ruefully.  He wondered if the 6Cy
riders, who had left town in the opposite direction.

were considering circling for revenge.  It was also likely that someone
in town had recognised him.  In that event a posse would now be
preparing to give furious chase.  But Hollister could see no sign of
pursuit, or anything like trouble forming ahead.

"What are we going to do then?"  Kitty asked in a small voice.

"I reckon," Hollister said, gnawing his bottom lip, "now we're mounted
and riding in the right direction, that we'd better keep riding.  There
ain't nothing you want out at the cabin, is there?"

"No."  The girl was silent for a long time.

"Are we going to your hideout?"

"Yeah," he said grimly.

"I got some dough there that will come in mighty handy to start us off
with.  We're going to leave this country a long ways behind.  I don't
like the taste of the dust round here no more.  We'll let the railroad
take us clear to California."

They spent more than three days riding through drab coloured country
that was sparsely vegetated.  Always there was the shimmering haze of
heat on the horizon.  The sky was brassy and cloudless by day,
dominated by the merciless sun that burned up the ground and tortured
the riders.  At night the welcome coolness of sundown turned bitter,
and Hollister and the girl slept together in their two blankets,
beneath a mysterious cover of scintillating dots that studded the vast
blackness of heaven.

With the girl snug in his arms and darkness pressing coldly upon his
upturned face, Hollister loved to stare at the many brilliant stars
that twinkled in the remote canopy above.  The peaceful night lent him
a serenity of mind which freed his thoughts of reality and harshness.
Lulled by his love for the girl so close to him.

tired by the rig ours of each daylong ride, he would muse for hours
while the girl slumbered with her head resting on his chest.  There was
no doubt now in his mind that he would become again the honest man
which once he had been.  But in his subconscious the first whisperings
of caution and tension began to rustle.  He was getting close to the
hideout, and very soon now he would have to face Frank Palmer and the
others.

Had his weeks of fighting back to health sapped his disregard for
danger?  More, had it exhausted his skill and ability?  Was he still as
fast with a gun?  He had made out all right against Shorty Fenton, but
had that episode been a fluke?  He had never known the meaning of fear.
But love and its rambling tendrils of softness were muffling his
aggressiveness, had been undermining his hard alertness from the moment
he declared his love for Kitty Adams.

He felt the warmth of her closeness mingling with the heat from his own
still body, and marvelled that she could have wrought such a change in
him.  It was not that she had talked him out of his crooked life!  But
knowing her had given him a desire to change for the better, and he
pondered over the strange wiles of fate.  A bullet had driven the
madness out of him.  It had shot him out of one life and into another,
and since he had been aware of the change he had not stopped
congratulating himself.

The long hours they spent together did much to fuse their love.  For
Kitty, her love took the sting out of her grief, and she diverted her
hard feelings, reversing grief to love, channelling all her emotions to
Hollister.  On his part, Hollister was content to bask in her
attentions and concern.  She chattered incessantly about their future,
and Hollister found himself planning wholeheartedly.

"I guess we'd better hunt up a preacher and get ourselves hitched," he
told her during their fifth day's ride.

"But we'll have to get clear of this neck of the woods first.  I've
operated too long round here."

"Have you any fears about making such a complete change in your life?"
she asked.

"Do you mean do I think I'm strong enough to keep straight once I've
taken the step?"  He smiled.

"There's no one more honest than the reformed badman.  Honesty will be
plain and obvious.  There'll be no going back once we're out of this
spot."

"I'm so glad," she breathed.

"But what about those other outlaws?  Will they let you go with the
money?"

"I've been thinking about that," he admitted.

"There's a rule in the gang that a man don't drop out unless he's dead.
As far as the others know right now I am dead.  Frank Palmer is about
the only one who might give me some trouble.  I'm worried about Palmer.
But I think I can handle the others."

They rode more slowly now, deeply tired more from the monotonous hours
than the weariness of their continual riding.  They crossed a range of
hills, passing along rocky floors of canyons and gorges and weed
infested dry washes.  They felt dwarfed by the rugged towering walls
which reached up far above them, and the air was like fire in their
throats, scorched by the shimmering rays of sunlight that packed the
heat into the lower levels until it formed almost a physical barrier.

Beyond the hills was open prairie, then more hills and rises that
inclined into flat-topped mountains.  Kitty could understand why the
Hollister gang had always eluded capture.  Never had she looked upon
such wild yet beautiful country!  They had not seen a sign of human
life for the past five days, and a great silence kept pressing in on
them, broken only by the creaking of harness leather, the metallic
clicking of the steel-shod hooves of their mounts and the stertorous
breathing of the labouring animals.  She loved the loneliness and the
feeling of closeness to Hollister that was ripening inside her.  They
rode for long stretches without conversing, each enrapt and spellbound
by the rugged wonder of Nature.

"How much further is it, Ash?"  she queried once.

"To the hideout?"  He had to make an effort to drag himself from his
thoughts, and glanced at the position of the sun in the sky.

"Hey, look at that, will you?  We're in for a storm."

She stared in awe at the foreboding sky.  The red ball of the westering
sun was haloed by dark cumulo us clouds that were drifting swiftly up
the invisible trail to heaven.  The sun was blood red, sullen as it
sought the cover of the jagged horizon, and the atmosphere was turning
slowly into oppressive heat.  The air seemed heavy and dead, like a
rotten blanket weighing heavily on the waiting earth.

"A black sundown," Hollister said, and shivered.

"We shan't make the hideout until past noon tomorrow.  There's a cave
we've used before when we've been pushed, and it's stocked up with wood
for a fire.  We'll just about make it there before the storm breaks.
Push your mount, Kitty."

The strangely red rays of the sun turned everything into golden fire.
Bright shafts of light speared downwards like angelic fingers searching
the earth.  The heat became tinged with coldness as a bleak wind came
starkly from the mountains.  Shadows deepened imperceptibly.  The sun
set in blood.  The wind wailed through the rocks.  The clouds rolled
onward in fantastic patterns and shapes, interchanging and breaking to
let red shafts of the dying sun stab through like the phantom lances of
the long dead Redmen who had roamed this country freely before the
coming of the white man.

A low muttering growled ominously in the distance, reverberating
through the tiered masses of cloud, growing in strength as the boiling
heart of the storm came nearer.  Darkness began stealing in on the
jumble of rocks and ledges through which Hollister and Kitty travelled,
and Hollister looked anxiously for the ravine where shelter was.  A
nerve jumping tongue of forked lightning suddenly gashed the blackness
overhead and fell upon the breathless earth in a cascade of fire.
Seconds later the following crash of thunder shocked their ears.  The
sky quivered and the ground rumbled.  Then a seemingly solid wall of
rain was blasted down by a scourging wind which threw the speeding
droplets into the faces of the weary travellers with spiteful
ferocity.

Hollister caught his breath in the gusting wind, and his words were
flung back in his teeth as he shouted to the girl.  He leaned sideways
in his saddle and grasped her arm, putting his mouth close to her
ear.

"The cave is over there.  Follow me."

They had to force their mounts into the wind and stinging rain, and
both were wet and cold, almost exhausted when they finally dismounted
stiffly in the black cave mouth.

"Hold the horses a moment," he commanded, his voice echoing hollowly
and mocked by the howling wind.

"I'll have a fire going in a couple of minutes."

He moved swiftly in the darkness with an assurance that sprang from
familiarity, and using the knife he carried on his belt, shaved off a
handful of splinters from a block of wood.  These he ignited with a
sulphur match and carefully nursed into flame.  He fed larger pieces of
wood into the warming conflagration and finally sat back on his heels
to watch the quick spread of flames.  Then he stood up and went to the
girl.

"Go and warm yourself," he said.

"Build up the fire a bit more and we'll get some food going.  I'll off
saddle the mounts here and take them into the rocks.  There's a
sheltered piece of grass down that way apiece.  They'll come to no
harm.  Are you very wet?"

"Soaked through," she replied cheerfully.

"Listen to that wind howling."

"When I was a shaver my mother used to tell me that the howling wind
was the cry of dead Indians who came for naughty boys."  Hollister
laughed echoingly as he began stripping the harness from the mounts.

"I couldn't get any wetter than I am, so I'll run the horses into the
grass.  Perhaps you'll put the pan on and the coffee into the pot while
I'm gone."

She did so, her heart singing and bubbling with happiness and love. Her
long hair was plastered flat like her sodden clothes, and she moved
closer to the merrily leaping flames which drove off the darkness that
filled the cave.  She shivered in the chill draught that gusted in
through the cave mouth.  She filled the coffee pot and stood it on a
thick piece of wood on the flames, then turned to the saddle bags and
drew forth coffee, bacon and flour.  Within minutes she had food
cooking in the pan, and the water in the pot was beginning to boil.

"Sit on this side," Hollister said, returning, and stood streaming
water all over the floor.

"You'll be out of the draught here."  He grinned boyishly.

"Say, you don't take long to get organised.  The coffee's ready by the
smell of it, and the grub looks mighty tempting.  I figure we'll do it
full justice."

He took off his hat and slammed it against the wall of the cave,
dashing off the water, then hung it on a convenient knob of rock.  He
stripped off his shirt and wrung it out, shivering as the cold air
struck his body.  He looked down at the still unhealed mark on his
chest where the bullet had passed out of him, and was thankful that he
was now completely recovered.  He went closer to the fire and bent over
the girl, kissing her lightly.

"Get the plates and mugs, Ash," she ordered, and he reached lazily into
a saddle bag.

"You can pour the coffee, it's ready.  The food's almost done."

When they had eaten and she had washed their plates and utensils in the
torrent of water that was rushing down the rocky wall outside the cave,
Hollister built up the fire with a great armful of boughs.  She spread
their two blankets in a warm corner of the cave.

"You'd better get out of those wet clothes now," he directed.

"Get between the blankets and I'll spread your things to dry.  Do you
want me to turn my back?"

"It doesn't matter much now," she replied seriously.

"We've been together for some time, and we are going to visit the
preacher when we can get round to it.  You'd better get your wet pants
off and consider your own modesty."

They both stripped, and while the girl slid thankfully between the
blankets, Hollister spread their already steaming clothes to dry.  Then
he ran across to the bed and got in beside the girl.  They lay in close
embrace, forgetting the cold rain, howling wind and growling thunder;
aware only of the warmth and each other .. .

As the hours passed, unnoticed by the two in the cave, trj,e wild heart
of the storm rolled away.  The thunder died and the wind eased.  Only
the rain continued relentlessly.  It was not until the first grey
streaks of dawn had clawed the black sky that the downpour slackened.

The clouds were gone by the time the sun came climbing back over the
horizon to survey the ravages, and the warming rays set about drying
out the soaking land.  Hollister awoke hungry but refreshed, and lay
watching Kitty until the girl stretched and opened her eyes.

"We'd better get moving," he said lazily.

"Today's our big day.  We should reach the hideout about noon.  I'm
wondering what to do with you.  I figure I can ride in there, get my
dough, and come out again with no trouble.  Maybe you'd better wait for
me somewhere.  If I do run into trouble and cash my chips you'll be
able to go your way.  But if you're in the hideout and it happens
you'll be at the mercy of Nixon and Forbes.  I wouldn't trust either of
those two jaspers."

"No, Ash," she pleaded.

"I'll take my chances with you."  She had a vision of waiting alone in
the rocks for him to return, and shuddered at the picture her mind
thrust up; he lying dead and she waiting with growing despair as each
hour passed.  Her mind boggled at the thought of life without him, and
she clung to him like a small child afraid of the dark.

"All right, we'll ride together," he said gently.

"Now we'd better get up and on our way."

"Not just yet," she begged.

"Let's have a few more moments together in case anything does happen
today."

He nodded, love for her thrilling through his body .. .

The hideout was a large cave set high in a rocky wall of a gorge.  The
entrance was reached by a narrow ledge which angled steeply up the face
of the rock.  Hollister reined up in the gorge and cautioned Kitty.  He
was taut nerved now, the tension in him keening his reflexes.

"I used to have a guard on that peak over there.  But I wager the
others haven't kept that custom going.  Drop a couple of yards behind
me, Kitty, just in case there's shooting."

He went on at a walk, sweating in the strong noonday sun.  Kitty looked
around with interest, her senses enthralled by the rugged beauty of
this harsh country.  Burnished rocks littered the floor of the gorge,
and desolate peaks looked down on all sides, frowning majestically upon
the travellers who dared despoil the intense silence.

"There it is," Hollister announced, pointing with steady finger, and
Kitty saw the mouth of the cave gaping blackly in the strong sunlight.
Even as she looked up she saw a man emerge from the cave, to stand
looking down at them.

"Who's that?"  she whispered, her pulses hammering.  She watched the
man begin a slow descent, his eyes carefully watching his footing.

"That's Trig Forbes," Hollister said slowly.

"I guess he's taken over the gang since they lost me.  I wonder how
they've been making out."

They rode into some rocks near the foot of the path, and Kitty was
surprised to see a pole barrier fencing off a small corral.  Two horses
were free in the enclosure, and Hollister recognised one of them as
belonging to Forbes.

"The others must be out riding," Hollister conjectured.- "Perhaps
they're on another raid."  He began off-saddling their horses, then
turned them into the corral.  He had just slid the pole back across the
mouth of the corral when Trig Forbes came up.

"Howdy, Trig?  Long time no see."

"I thought I was seeing a ghost," Forbes said strongly.

"We figgered you had dropped in the wilds and died.  What in hell
happened to you.  Ash?"  Forbes could not keep his eyes off Kitty, and
Hollister noted that the man did not say he was glad to see his old
gang boss.

"I stopped a slug in the back, as I was crossing the bridge," he told
Forbes.

"Somehow I managed to reach a cabin in the woods, and I lay on my back
for two weeks before I even knew I was alive.  But now I'm as good as
new, thanks to Kitty here.  Now I'm back in circulation.  Where are the
others?"

"Clanton's taken them on a job.  They're holding up a train near
Prospect.  I tried to warn them off, but Clanton has sort of taken over
the gang since you dropped out."

"Clanton, eh?"  Hollister fingered the butt of his gun.

"What happened at Shutter's Crossing, Trig?  Who started the
shooting?"

"Need you ask?  Clanton saw the sheriff crossing the street while we
still had another two minutes inside the bank.  He cut that lawman down
without warning and started off the whole shooting works.  Langham and
Squint were killed, and until now we'd figured you'd cashed as well."

"Yeah."  Hollister's face was grim.

"I always said we'd have trouble with that cocky gun hand  He's a
special pard of Burt's ain't he?"

"They's ridden together some," Forbes said evenly.

"Well, I'm glad to see you back.  Ash.  Things ain't been the same."

"I figured you'd be the boss anytime I went."  Hoi-lister was searching
for an inkling to the situation in the gang.  He knew his own strong
personality had kept these men working in harmony, and sensed from
Forbes' manner that the man had attempted to take over the gang but
failed.

"Clanton has big ideas," Forbes said.

"I don't plan big enough for Palmer and Nixon.  I didn't cotton on to
this train job, so I wouldn't go with them.  You will soon have things
back to normal, Ash."

"Not me, Trig."  Hollister shook his head.

"I'm pulling out.  I've had my fill.  That bullet I stopped has put
some new thoughts into my head.  I've come for my cut, then I'm leaving
this country."

"We split up the dough as soon as we realised you wouldn't be coming
back."

"That's natural."  Hollister smiled.

"You'll just have to put it all back and divvy it up again, this time
five-handed.  What did we make from the bank in Sutler's Crossing?"

"Forty thousand.  It would have been more if we'd got the sack you
dropped when you took that slug."

"So I've got around twenty thousand dollars coming to me, counting the
dough we had stashed away before Suiter's Crossing."

"Yeah."  Forbes did not sound enamoured with the thought that his cut
would be lessened by a further share, and Hollister knew the others
would be of a similar mind.

"I guess the others will be glad to see you, Ash."

Hollister doubted that.  He sighed as he motioned Kitty to follow
Forbes up the path to the cave.  He eased his Colt in its holster.  It
looked like he would have a fight on his hands when the others got
back, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that.  Yet there was something
in Forbes' manner, some veiled hostility, that warned Hollister of what
he might expect from the rest of the gang.

He stared around the cave, quick to notice the general untidiness, and
realised that it hadn't taken the gang long to forget his rules for
their behaviour while in hiding together.  Perhaps their alertness and
care in operating had similarly lapsed.

"When are you expecting them back.  Trig?"  he asked.

"Never, I hope," was the surly reply.

"They just ain't got the savvy needed to be really successful in this
line of business.  They ain't got planning sense.  Take this idea of
Clanton's.  He heard there is a quarter of a million in bullion on that
train.  But he ain't taken a wagon along to tote the stuff away in.  No
sir, he's thinking they'll be able to carry it across their saddle bags
like it was so much paper money.  They got a thing or two to learn yet.
Clanton don't figger it, but he's still wet behind the ears.  This
business is risky with a good man like you holding the reins.  I ain't
taking no chances with Clanton."

"Why don't you quit while you still can?"  Hollister asked softly.

"You got enough dough cached to be choosey, ain't you?"

"You know the rule, Ash; you made it yourself."  Forbes looked up from
the fire he was tending and his dark, cruel eyes were expressionless,
like a snake's.  He straightened and rubbed his hands down the sides of
his dirty pants, his white teeth gleaming under his thick black
moustache.

"Nobody leaves the gang of his own free will."  He crossed to a blanket
spread over some twigs and dropped down with a sigh.

"Well I'm pulling out," Hollister said.  He dumped his gear in the
opposite corner and Kitty began unrolling their blankets.

"You would, too.  Trig, if it suited you."

"Sure."  Forbes jerked a thumb at the Wells Fargo strong box which
stood on a rock at the far end of the cave.

"I could have run out with that lot; over one hundred thousand dollars
we've lifted from different places in the last year.  But I don't fancy
trying to live free and easy with killers like Palmer and Burt Nixon on
my tail.  There ain't no future in that, Ash."

"So?"  Hollister knew Forbes intimately.  They had ridden a good many
trails together in their time.

"So mebbe we can do a sort of a deal, huh?"  Forbes grinned evilly.

"You're a smart hombre, Ash.  You know what will happen when you tell
the others that you're through here.  They'll all slap leather, and
split up your share of the loot when they've buried you.  It's dog eat
dog in this business.  But if we got together and made a few plans
before they came back there's no reason why we shouldn't both ride out
of here as rich men.  That hundred thousand bucks would look mighty
handsome split just two ways."

"Sure it would," Hollister said thinly.

"But you know me better than that, Trig.  I've never pulled a
double-cross in my life.  I'm too old to start now.  I figure the boys
have already wiped me out of the picture.  So I'll stay dead.  All I
want is my share."

"Dead men don't share in anything, Ash, you know that."  Forbes was
smooth, smiling easily.

"That's the way the fellers will see it.  They've already counted your
share as theirs.  You don't think they'll give it back now, do you?"

"I think they will."  Hollister smiled coldly.

"My cut only takes five thousand apiece from each of theirs.  They
ain't going to run the risk of a bullet from my gun for the sake of
that kind of money when they've already got twenty thousand each.  I
know my boys.  Trig."

"Well if you're wrong you'll be dead," Forbes said.

"Clanton has turned out real mean.  It'll be interesting to see how it
turns out."

"Which side will you be on?"

Forbes moved his hand away from his gun at the sharpness in Hollister's
voice.  The outlaw had known Hollister long enough to be able to
recognise every expression and inflexion in the gang leader's make-up.
He could reason as quickly as Hollister that Hollister's best bet was
to cut the odds against him before a showdown came.  He smiled.

"Don't go jumping at me, Ash," he said quickly, knowing that Hollister
was his master with any weapon from an even break.

"I'm not taking any side.  I ain't in the clear with Clanton now
because I backed out of his train job.  It's likely he'll come back
here with the intention of fighting me if he's done all right against
the railroad.  I figger we've both got to step easy."

"Yeah.  Well, it don't pay to cross rivers before you come to them. Now
when are you expecting them back?  You didn't say."

"Tomorrow or the day after."  Forbes got to his feet.

"Heck, seeing you just now made me forget what I went down there for. I
got to water my bronc.  Make yourself to home, Ash.  I reckon I'd
better sack down in the meadow tonight, seeing we got company.  That's
another of the old rules been busted clean in two.  You never would
have a female in the camp."

"This is different," Hollister said as Forbes walked out of the cave.

"Me and Kitty are getting married as soon as we can hunt up a
preacher."

Forbes went out without replying, and Hollister's brown eyes narrowed
with concern when he turned to look into the apprehensive features of
the girl he loved... Chapter Five

Two DAYS PASSED slowly for Hollister and the girl before Trig Forbes,
who had, on the second day, taken up a position where he could observe
the approaches to the hideout, came clambering down from his pinnacle
to tell Hollister that riders were approaching.

"Three of them," the outlaw said, "travelling light and fast."  He
could not suppress a harsh chuckle.

"They ain't carrying no gold.  Looks like things ain't panned out well
with them."

"Let's go down and meet them," Hollister said.  He turned to Kitty.

"You stay up here.  It might be safer."

Hollister remembered the expression on the girl's face as he followed
Trig down the path.  His quick mind tussled with a welter of thought as
he tried to formulate some arguments for his decision to leave the
gang.  But his mind was still with reasons when John Clanton came
galloping up to the cluster of rocks where Hollister and Forbes
stood.

"What the hell!"  Clanton ejaculated when he saw Hollister.

"Gripes, we'd given you up for dead."

"The devil takes care of his own," Hollister said shortly.

"What are you trying to kill a good horse for?"

"We ran into trouble."  Clanton swung stiffly out of leather.

"We're being chased by a tolerable sized posse, and they ain't no more
than thirty minutes behind us.  Nixon has been shot.  He ain't too
good.  Palmer is helping him in."

"What the hell have you ridden in here for if you're being trailed?"
Hollister demanded.  He swung away from the dusty, now sullen John
Clanton as two more riders came thundering up.

"You know the rule is never lead a posse to the hideout.  How many
lawmen are there?"

"A dozen."  Clanton leaned against his horse.  He was panting.

"We can fight them off from here."

"Sure.  As soon as they've located this place one of them will ride to
the nearest town for reinforcements while the rest of them keep us
occupied.  It happened to Bill Dolan and his boys in Nevada." Hollister
broke off when Frank Palmer swung down from his saddle to catch Burt
Nixon as the wounded man swayed and fell to the ground.

"Better put him in the shade, Frank.  We can't go up to the cave if a
posse is only thirty minutes away."

"I took over the gang when we thought you'd been killed," Clanton
said.

"Then the others must be real glad to see me back."  Hollister grinned
at the apprehensive Clanton.

"You've landed all of us into a load of trouble."

"Well, we'd better not stand around talking about it," said Frank
Palmer.

"That posse ain't a long ways behind.  We'd better get the dough and
hightail it out've here.  I don't want to be caught by no lawman riding
in this part of the country after what Clanton did on the hold up.  You
did some mean killing on that train, Clanton.  When you're as old as me
you'll realise that unnecessary killing rouses up them law dogs  I'll
tell you one thing and that ain't as maybe.  I don't ride with you
again in the big saddle."

Palmer eased the semi-conscious Burt Nixon to the ground."  Hollister's
eyes narrowed as Palmer knelt beside the wounded outlaw and ripped open
the man's blood soaked shirt.  Nixon had a messy wound in the chest.
Hollister shook his head.  Nixon's hours were numbered.  He crossed to
Palmer's side.  The big knife man wiped dust from his face as he turned
his head to survey Hollister.

"I'm real glad to see you back, Ash, even though you did treat us like
a bunch of dogfaces.  At least you got results.  That's more than I can
say for the two jobs we done since I saw you fall in the dust coming
out of Sutler's Crossing.  Do you think Nixon is gonna die?"

"Yeah.  He's hit plumb centre.  When did the posse get up with you?"

"Just after dawn.  I said we should have pulled out before the sun was
up.  Pity I wasn't listened at.  Now we'd better get moving pronto.
Let's get our dough and make a run for it."

"I'll go up and fetch the strong box," Clanton said.

"You go saddle up the horses in the corral," Hollister ordered.

"Me and Trig will bring the gear from the cave."

For a moment it looked like Clanton was going to argue.  But the
expression in Hollister's wintry eyes convinced the young killer that
he faced a determined man, and apparently it wasn't Clanton's time for
a showdown for supremacy in the gang, because he turned abruptly on his
heel and stalked away.

"I haven't got the time now," Hollister said slowly,

staring after Clanton.

"But I ain't forgetting Sutler's Crossing."

"He's got too big for his boots since we let him run things," Trig
Forbes said harshly.

"I've a mind to slap him down to size."

"Leave him to me," Frank Palmer said.

"Gripes, you should have seen us on that job."

"Tell us about it later," Hollister interrupted.

"Stay here with Nixon, Frank, while we go up to the cave for the dough.
We'll have to be moving if we want to stay outside the law."

"Yeah.  Don't be too long."  Palmer returned his attention to the
prostrate Nixon.

"That posse sure was splitting the breeze on our tails the last time I
saw them.  We ain't got no more than ten minutes if we're going to get
clean away."

Hollister followed Forbes back up the path.  He was un flurried in this
emergency, and knew the others, including Forbes, to be in a panic. But
Hollister's mind was already planning their route out of danger, and he
was aware that dismay occupied the back of his mind.  He would have
preferred a clean break with these men, knowing it would be that much
harder if he ran with them from danger.  But survival was his chief
concern.  Now more than ever he wanted to keep clear of the pursuing
lawmen.

In the cave Forbes seized the strong box, heaved it to his shoulder,
and turned to hasten back down the path.  Hollister sighed and barred
the man's way.  Forbes looked up swiftly with quick fear in his eyes,
as if he half-expected to be shot down in cold blood.

"Use your head, Trig," Hollister snapped.

"Throw some grub together in a couple of sacks.  Get your blanket roll.
We may have to spend a couple of days in the mountains before we can
get clear.  That dough will do you no good if we run out of grub or get
trapped by the posse."

"You're right."  Forbes swung the heavy box to the ground.

"I'm sure glad you came back when you did.  Ash.  We'd be in a mess now
if Clanton was still bossing the gang."

"We are in a mess now," Hollister said grimly.

"You know those lawmen won't give up if there's been wanton killing
done on the railroad.  We'd both swing for that if they catch us, and
we weren't even there."

"Yeah.  Remind me to thank Clanton when we get breathing space." Forbes
busied himself with the supplies.

"I'd better pack all of this.  We got a couple of spare horses to carry
it."

Hollister nodded and turned to Kitty, telling the girl in a few terse
words about his quickly-formed plans.  He watched her face show
disapproval, and staunched her voluble protests with a raised hand and
sharp rebuke.

"We haven't got time to argue," he said firmly.

"If that posse comes up with us now we'll all be killed."

"But you had nothing to do with that job."

"You can stay and tell them that if you wish," he replied grimly.

"But I wouldn't bank my life on the reception you'd get.  I'm Ash
Hollister, and they'd string me up anyway for past crimes.  They'll be
in a murder mood because of what Clanton did.  Throw our blankets
together and we'll be moving."

In a matter of minutes the fire in the cave had been doused, food was
sacked and other gear that might be needed was thrown together.  Forbes
picked up the strong box and went at a shambling run down the
treacherous path.  Hollister followed with the stores,

and Kitty came behind with their blanket rolls and Hollister's rifle.

Clanton was waiting with the horses saddled and ready.  The killer
whistled when he saw Kitty, and Hollister saw appreciation flare into
the youngster's eyes.

"No wonder you weren't keen to get back to us," he said.

"Get this stuff tied on to one of the horses," Hollister snapped.  He
saw that Forbes was roping the strong box into a spare saddle, and
threw the sacks of supplies at Clanton's feet.

"Kitty, take a look at Nixon and see if there's anything you can do for
him."

He watched the girl squat beside big Frank Palmer.  He was worried
about Nixon.  The outlaw was badly wounded, and would slow their
progress a great deal.  But he couldn't be left for the posse.
Hollister crossed to where the wounded outlaw lay and dropped to one
knee.  Nixon was conscious, his eyes feverish in his haggard, bearded
face.

"How do you feel?"  Hollister asked gently.

"Do you think you can sit a horse, Burt?  We got to be riding.  The
posse will be here in under thirty minutes."  He turned and glanced at
Forbes, who was standing beside the horse loaded with the strong box.

"Trig," he called, "you'd better check the water.  Mustn't get caught
dry in the rocks."

Forbes collected the canteens and disappeared among the rocks.  Clanton
came to where Nixon lay and looked down at the wounded man.

"He's dying, ain't he?"  There was no compassion in Clanton.

"We'll have to leave him.  He'll slow us considerable.  Come on,
everything's ready.  Let's hit the trail."

"Since when have you given orders when I'm around?"  Hollister demanded
savagely.

"Nixon wouldn't be in this state if it wasn't for you.  You're free to
ride out alone, Clanton."

"What about my share of the dough?"

"You'd forfeit that."

"You figure on taking a cut?"  Clanton's eyes had frosted.

"We already split that dough when we thought you were dead."

"Then you'll have to unsplit it."  Hollister flexed the fingers of his
gun hand as he straightened.

"You just said I'd get nothing if I rode out alone.  Why should there
be a different rule for you?"

"There isn't," Hollister said quietly, facing Clanton.

"I came back, didn't I?  I was knocked out because you couldn't keep
your hands off your gun.  There wouldn't have been any shooting in
Sutler's Crossing but for you."

Palmer came up from his crouching position over the wounded Nixon like
an uncoiling spring.  One huge paw of a hand clamped on Clanton's gun
hand and the other fastened around the young outlaw's throat. Palmer
was growling like a grizzly.

"I've had just about enough of you, sonny," he grated.

"You're a mean killer with no savvy.  You led us into a lot of trouble,
and now you can't keep quiet when it would pay you to.  Ash stopped
lead in Sutler's Crossing because of you, and we lost Langham and
Squint.  You're a menace to all of us, and the sooner we see the back
of you the better.  Now shut your yap or I'll slit your gizzard.  I
don't want to hear any more from you until we're out of this mess
you've got us into.  Then you can have your cut and git."

Palmer threw Clanton from him, and the young outlaw's feet left the
ground as he went over backwards to sprawl in the dust several yards
away.  Clan-ton lay for a moment, his eyes blazing with fury.  Then his
hand went to his gun.

"Hold it," Hollister shouted.

"A shot will tell the posse exactly where we are.  Knock it off, both
of you.  We've got to stick together to get out of this."

For a moment it seemed that Clanton would disobey the order, and Frank
Calmer stood with the fingers of his right hand close to his right ear,
ready to pluck the knife from the sheath he wore at the back of his
neck.

"Try and pull that gun, Clanton," Palmer goaded.

"I can stick you to the ground before you touch the trigger, and a
knife don't make a noise.  Go on, try and lift that gun you keep
telling us you're so good with."

"Lay off, Frank," Hollister said.

"We don't want any trouble among ourselves.  We may find it hard enough
to shake off this posse without fighting each other."

"It's his fault," Palmer said.

"He's a dirty, low killer.  He shot down the railroad men for no reason
at all.  They all stood with their hands up.  They wasn't giving us any
trouble."

"We'll go into that later," Hollister said.

"Let's see if we can get Hurt into a saddle."

Kitty had padded Nixon's wound, and was bandaging the outlaw when
Hollister bent over her.  She looked up, met his eyes, and shook her
head.  He nodded.  Nixon was gasping for breath, his face waxen and
ghastly.  The man's eyes were bright.  He began muttering when he saw
Hollister, trying to get up.

"You take it easy, Burt.  We'll put you into a saddle and hold you
there if we have to.  We'll get you to a sawbones when we get clear of
this posse."

"Leave me.  Ash," the outlaw said faintly, and a pale red froth
appeared on his lips.  The dressing Kitty had put on the wound was
becoming saturated with blood.

"I'm done for."  The words were sibilant and poorly framed by the
stiffening lips.

"Let me lie and go peacefully.  Fuji off my boots .. ."

Hollister sighed.  He moved around the dying man and gently eased the
dusty boots from the limp feet.  Forbes came bursting out of the nearby
rocks, his fleshy face showing panic.

"Quick," he shouted.

"The law is here.  They're riding out of the trees on the other side of
the meadow.  There's a score of them."

"Take it easy," Hollister said.

"It'll take them ten minutes to get here.  We can soon lose them in
these rocks."

"What about Nixon?  He can't ride.  Are you going to leave him?"

"It doesn't matter," said Kitty.

"He's gone."

Hollister made a swift examination and agreed.  Nixon was dead.  His
eyes were glazing.  Hollister straightened, pulling Kitty to her
feet.

"Let's look to ourselves now," he said.

"Mount up and we'll get moving."

They hurried to their mounts.  Forbes had slung their canteens from
each saddle horn  Hollister picked up his Winchester and slipped it
into his saddle-holster, then climbed aboard his hull.  He waited for
Kitty to get mounted, and turned to the others as the girl rode to his
side.

"Trig, take the supplies.  Frank, bring the strong box.  Clanton, lead
Nixon's horse and guard the rear.  We'll head for the other hideout. If
we can gain a little time on the posse we'll be able to blot out our
tracks and get clear away."

Without waiting to see if they obeyed his instructions, Hollister raked
the flanks of his mount and set the animal into a fast clip.  Kitty
came abreast of him and stayed there, and the hammering of steel shod
hooves on rock was loud as they fled from the hideout.

Hollister figured that the posse would waste precious time approaching
and searching the hideout.  His mind leaped ahead of his galloping
horse and he planned the route he would take.  This was close country
of ravine, arroyo and dry wash, admirable for ambush, and he knew the
posse would travel slowly and carefully after searching the abandoned
hideout.  He began to turn over several possibilities in his agile
mind.

For two hours he led them at a scrambling run which took them into some
of the wildest and most ruggedly beautiful country Kitty had ever seen.
The girl was breathless at times, as when they skirted a mighty chasm
which gashed the towering peaks and a long sweep of terraced rock lay
in serried rows before their wondering eyes.  Nothing moved in this
barren world which was abandoned by Nature.  Heat was oppressive,
shimmering in the distance, and only the snorting of their tiring
mounts, the creak of saddle leather and clink of hooves against the hot
rock broke the sullen peace of this desolate country.

"Rest up for ten minutes," Hollister ordered, stepping down from his
saddle in the shade of a towering rock.  He loosened the girths, and
poured some water from his canteen into his hat to water the horse.  He
patted the sweat-streaked neck of the animal.

"Don't forget the spare mounts," he called, and took a slow swig of
cool water, keeping it in his mouth for a moment before letting it
trickle into his parched inside.

Then he clapped his Stetson back on his head, feeling that the inside
was almost dry again.

Kitty came up to him, stepping wearily over the rough rock.  He put an
arm around her shoulder to steady her and she leaned against him.

"We're doing all right," he encouraged.

"I haven't seen sign of that posse, and they would have fired some
shots if they'd seen us, no matter how far behind they were.  I reckon
they lost our trail when we turned into that ravine then doubled back.
We'll be in another hideout come sundown, and then we're pulling out
alone.  They can go their own trail."

"We've got to get away from them.  Ash," she said softly.

"You'll have nothing but trouble until we do.  That Clanton has been
giving you some nasty looks ever since we left the other place.  Every
time I turn in the saddle I see he's watching you or me, and he's got
such an evil smile."

"I can handle him," Hollister said.

"Don't worry, honey.  We'll make out okay.  We haven't got much further
to go."  He turned to the others.

"Get ready to move out."

"Give us another ten minutes," Palmer growled.

"My hoss is going lame."

"Then change over to the bronc carrying the strong box," Hollister
snapped.

"Ten more minutes won't make any difference to a lame leg, but it could
be life or death to us."

Palmer grumbled as he switched mounts, and Forbes helped the massive
outlaw change over the strong box.  When they were ready Hollister led
out, setting a bone wearying pace over the hot rock.  The others
followed silently, and Kitty, whenever Hollister turned to look at her,
although ever ready with a quick smile, was finding the ride very
hard.

They followed the sinuous line of a never-ending ridge with the sun
blazing mercilessly down upon their bowed shoulders.  Hollister could
feel the heat drawing at the moisture in his body.  Sweat gathered at
his neck and armpits, and as quickly dried, leaving him hung over in
the saddle.  He realised, as the hours passed and the uncertain miles
slipped by, that he was not yet fully recovered from the wound he had
picked up on the flight from Sutler's Crossing.  He began to feel
lightheaded, and had difficulty in keeping his eyes open.  Passing
along a narrow ledge, with a drop of hundreds of feet only inches away
on his left hand, he began to reel in his saddle, and completed the
ride along the ledge with his eyes closed, hands gripping the
saddle-horn and legs clamped around the barrel of his mount.

On the skyline, as they left the ridge and came upon a wide shelf of
rock, Kitty came up alongside Hollister and caught his arm.

"Ash, you're overdoing it.  Twice you nearly went off that ledge.  My
heart was in my mouth.  You've got to take it easy.  That posse can't
be on our trail now, not the way we've come.  We haven't left any sign
for miles on these stretches of bare rock."

"We haven't far to go now," he responded.

"We go down this slope, into the gulch a couple of miles away, then
into a ravine.  There's another cave like the one we left this morning;
all fitted out like home.  We'll be able to rest up for a week until
the heat's off.  This is good country for hiding in, but there are only
a few known trails out of it, and when the law comes in here looking
for someone they usually block all the exits with deputies, then send
in posses to search.

"But they can't block the way ahead," she said firmly.

"They couldn't have got in front of us."

"They don't need to," Hollister said gravely.

"They've only got to telegraph half a dozen towns to alert all the
lawmen in the country, and they could all be in position before we've
ridden a score of miles.  That's progress for you, and it's one of the
reasons I want to get out of this crooked business.  The West is
growing up.  The Law is getting organised.  It isn't a case of a
handful of lawmen controlling each community in isolation any more.
When communication was as slow as the fastest horse it took lawmen
sometimes a day or two to gather a posse.  Now it's done in an hour
with the aid of the singing wires, as the Indians called them.  An
outlaw today needs to be a deal more cleverer than the old-time badman,
and he's got to use his brains, not a gun.  If he's a gang leader he's
got to be able to control his men all the time, and he shouldn't
tolerate killers like Clanton."

The girl looked back at the young outlaw bringing up the rear, and he
grinned malevolently when he caught her eye.  She shivered, and turned
her head to survey their front.  An intangible thrill of fear rippled
through her, ominous and frightening.  The very silence of this harsh
country seemed oppressive and hostile, and she rode closer to Hollister
for comfort.  He seemed so capable and strong, even in the crooked
company of these tough outlaws.  She began to wish that he hadn't been
so set on getting his share of the spoils his gang had accumulated from
their past raids.  If only they had ridden in the opposite direction
like she had known they should they wouldn't be in this trouble now.
She was partly to blame, too, she realised with dismay.  If she had
been resolute in refusing to live on stolen money he would have given
up the idea.

Hollister interrupted her thoughts then, startling her with a vivid
oath.  He leaned sideways and seized her reins, urging both their
mounts aside to a cluster of rocks.  He shouted to the others, and his
words froze her blood and brought the others clattering recklessly into
cover.

"Heck, there are riders down there.  Into cover, for God's sake."

They dismounted quickly among the rocks, and Hoi-lister made Kitty hold
the horses.  He led the others back to the edge of the rocks and they
peered down the long slope at the group of horsemen who had just ridden
out of the gulch wherein was situated their alternative hideout.

Chapter Six

"WHERE IN HELL have they come from?"  cursed Trig Forbes.

"I suppose they are lawmen?"

"Couldn't be anyone else," Frank Palmer said tersely.

They watched the eight tiny riders in the entrance to the gulch,
waiting to learn their next movements.

"Do you think they've found the hideout in the ravine?"  asked
Clanton.

"I'm wondering if they've spotted us," said Hollister.  He glanced at
the skyline above them.

"At least we were down off the crest.  We weren't moving fast, so I
think we're safe for the moment.  I spotted them as they rode out into
the open.  We got into cover before they had a chance to look round. If
they move out we can sneak into the hideout."

"Are you crazy?"  Clanton moved back from the rock and stared at
Hollister.

"I'm not sticking my nose into any more trouble.  It may be a trap.  If
we were cornered in there we'd never get out alive."

"You got a better idea?"  Hollister asked.

"I figure those posse men have got considerable ground to cover, and
they won't go over the same area twice."

"Well I ain't going down there," Clanton said obstinately

"Give me my cut and I'll make my own way out of this hell-hole."

"How do you others feel about it?"  Hollister studied the hard faces of
Forbes and Palmer.  It would suit him very well if they also decided to
pull out.

"Not me," said Forbes, grinning, for he knew exactly what was in
Hollister's mind, and knew that Hollister knew what he was thinking.

"I'll stick with you, Ash.  We've always done all right together."

"And me," said Frank Palmer.

"Give Clanton his dough and let him mosey along.  He's caused us enough
trouble.  I'll be glad to see the back of him."

"You'd better put a curb on your tongue.  Palmer, it's dragging,"
Clanton snarled heatedly.

"Your size don't scare me.  I don't take lip from anyone.  If you got
anything to say, stand up and talk with your gun."

"Knock it off, Clanton," Hollister said wearily, "or I'll bend my Colt
round your ears.  Those fellers down there mean business.  If you want
your dough, okay, you can have it.  But lay off the strong talk."

"Keep out've it.  Ash," Palmer said.

"That's twice today this snotty-nosed kid has sassed me.  Just let him
try to get his ho gleg into action.  I'll put one of my blades into his
throat.  I owe it to him for what he did at Sutler's Crossing.  He
started all that shooting.  Then this last raid.  He's gun crazy, and
oughta be shot down like a mad dog."

"Lay off, Frank," Hollister commanded.

"Let him go.  Trig, get the strong box down and give Clanton his
cut."

"Nixon's dead, and you're back in his place.  Ash."  Forbes got to his
feet.

"The divvy will be the same as it was.  We had it figured that the
dough in the box would cut square four ways into twenty-five thousand
dollars each."

"Give him the money then."  Hollister kept his eyes on the white-faced
John Clanton.

"I'll match my gun against your knives, Palmer," Clanton said.

"Cut it loose then."  Palmer was lounging against a rock.  His big face
was eager, and suddenly vicious.

"I like to take on a feller of your stamp.  Get your hand working,
punk."

Hollister started forward.  His intention was to prevent Clanton
drawing his gun.  One shot, he knew, would bring the posse up to them.
But Clanton was already making his enraged play.  The young killer's
face was twisted with hatred.  Hollister gritted his teeth.

There was a curse from Frank Palmer.  Something glinted through the air
past Hollister's face like a flash of light.  John Clanton, lifting his
Colt clear of leather, choked and staggered, his gun hand falling away.
Hollister saw the haft of one of Palmer's knives protruding from
Clanton's throat.  The young killer hit the ground and lay choking on
his blood.

Hollister sighed his relief.  He bent and picked up Clanton's gun.
Palmer stalked forward, grinning wolfishly.  He bent and pulled his
knife out of Clanton's throat, cursing the spurting blood which was
released by the restraining blade, and he wiped the silent weapon on
the dead man's shirt.  He grinned at Hollister as he returned the knife
to its sheath.

"I've been wanting to do that ever since Sutler's Crossing," he said.

"I liked Squint Boomer."

Hollister turned away.  He looked down toward the gulch, and was
relieved to see the posse men riding away south from the hideout.  He
wondered if the hide out had been discovered, and knew there was only
one way to find out.

"Come on, Frank," he said, glancing once more at the dead Clanton.

"Let's get back to the horses."

Trig Forbes was on his knees with the open cash-box before him.  Kitty
was staring at all the money as if hypnotised by the sight.  Palmer
walked across to Forbes and put his dusty boot upon the pile of money
Trig had counted out for Clanton.

"Put it back, Trig," he advised.

"Clanton don't want it now."

"Don't want it?"  Forbes looked round.

"He changed his mind?  Where is he?"

"A long ways from here by now," Hollister told him softly.

"He figured his gun was faster than Frank's knife.  I wonder if he knew
before he died?"

"He's cashed then?"  Forbes got to his feet quickly, the money strewn
all over the rock under his big boots, and his fleshy face glistened
with tiny droplets of sweat.

"Not before his time either," said Palmer.

"How much do we get now, all that dough split just three ways instead
of four?"

"Give me thirty thousand," Hollister told them, "and you two can share
the rest."

"What you planning, Ash?"  Palmer asked.

"You cutting out now?"

"I'm going to the hideout to rest up for a week.  I figure the heat
will be off by then.  That money would travel a lot easier split three
ways and packed in saddle bags.  Then if we get into trouble we can run
different ways and each have our dough.  In that box it can only go one
way."

"You got the rights of it."  Palmer relaxed.

"Split it up.  Trig, and mind you count it right."

Hollister stood watching silently.  He motioned Kitty to bring their
saddle bags, and the girl stepped around Palmer and stood beside
Hollister.  When Forbes had counted out thirty thousand dollars,
Hollister signalled to the girl and she knelt beside Forbes and packed
the money into the two bags.  When she had finished she carried them to
Hollister, who put an arm around her shoulders.

"Keep it on your hoss, Kitty.  Don't ever let it out of your sight."

The girl nodded and Hollister turned away to go and take another look
at the posse.  He stepped over the stiffening body of Clanton and
peered down the slope to where he had last seen the eight horsemen.  It
took him several minutes to find them, and a hard smile crossed his
dusty face when he saw they were a couple of miles further south.  They
were indistinguishable at the distance, but a small cloud of dust
marked their position.

"Have they gone?"  It was Forbes at his elbow.

"You'd like me and Palmer to ride out, wouldn't you, Ash?"

"I told you two to please yourselves."  Hollister started back towards
the horses.

"You know what I'm going to do, and I can't wait to get there.  I'm
bushed.  It'll be dark in a couple of hours.  If we ride now we'll be
at the hideout at sundown."

"You're the boss," Forbes said.

"So let's get mounted and moving."

"Do you think it's safe yet?"  Palmer asked.

"I don't care," Hollister told them.

"I'm not spending the night out here.  We can ride down now.  Like I
said.

those posses have enough to do without covering the same ground
twice."

"So let's ride."  Palmer vaulted into his saddle with surprising
agility.

"I'm a hungry man.  It's a good job you thought to pack some grub
along, Ash."

Hollister grinned at Forbes.  They all mounted.  Then he led them out
of the rocks.  They glanced at Clanton's carcase as they passed the
killer's last position, and Hollister sent his big mount almost
recklessly down the long slope with Kitty close behind.

Hollister was correct in his forecast that they would reach the hideout
at nightfall.  They entered the gulch with great caution, and found
lots of sign left by the prowling posse.  But the lawmen had not
entered the ravine, for there was no recent sign leading in or out of
it.  Forbes dropped back to blot out their tracks while Hollister rode
ahead to check the cave.  Palmer and Kitty dismounted and stood resting
their mounts, waiting for Hollister to give them the come-on signal.

"You're afraid of me, girlie," Palmer suddenly accused in the growing
darkness, and laughed loudly.

"You think mebbe I'm gonna sink a blade into Ash and run with his share
of the dough, eh?"

"No," she replied falteringly.

"You do frighten me a little.  But I feel sure Ash can take care of
himself."

"He can at that," Palmer assured her.

"Me, I like Ash.  He's a good leader.  We done some good jobs together.
You don't have to worry about me now, but Trig is a different matter. I
figger he's a hoss of another colour.  I seen him looking at you today
when he thought he wasn't being watched."

"Are you serious?"  she asked incredulously.

"Do I look like a joker?"  he demanded grimly.

Hollister checked the cave, finding it exactly as he had left it weeks
before, and he was only too well aware of the deep-rooted tiredness
that sapped the vitality from his muscles as he waved the come-on to
Palmer and the girl.  In the background, as he looked along the ravine,
almost indistinguishable in the gathering shadows, Forbes was still
busy removing all traces of their tracks around the entrance.

Palmer lit a fire, using some of the wood Hollister had made them pack
into the place when they first set up the dozen or so hideouts right
through the mountains.  Hollister unrolled a blanket, and using the
money-filled saddle bags for a pillow, lay down wearily, almost utterly
spent.  He watched Kitty preparing food, and a long time later, when he
was almost asleep, he saw Trig Forbes come in.

"I took care of the horses," Forbes announced, sitting beside Palmer at
the fire.

"That food smells good.  Is it ready?"

"Just about," Kitty replied, rattling plates.

"I hope it tastes as good as it smells," Palmer remarked.

"I'm plumb starved.  We got it good here, eh, Trig?  Like home from
home."

"I figure we'd better stand guard tonight," Forbes said, his face
expressionless in the firelight.

"For the first hours of darkness anyway.  Those lawmen will be mighty
jumpy, and I'd hate to get trapped in here.  There's no other way
out."

Hollister forced his eyes open and sat up, grunting with the effort.
Forbes regarded him from across the fire.

"What about some plans now.  Ash.  We stay here while the heat is on.
Then what?"

"We split up," Hollister told them.  He watched Palmer's expansive
face.

"I reckon we're through in

this country anyway.  We all got a lot of dough, so let's get out while
we can."

There was a tense silence in the cave, broken only by the rattling of
the plates as Kitty served their food.  Forbes avoided Hollister's
eyes.  Palmer sat looking into the fire, his eyes secretive, the
firelight shielding his expression from Hollister's questing gaze.

"Yeah," Palmer said suddenly.

"I guess the gang really finished at Sutler's Crossing.  So you want to
call it a day.  Ash."  Palmer looked across the fire.

"Well, I'll go along with that.  I got enough dough to last me
considerable, and then some.  Do we hide up here until the heat is
off?"

"We'd better," Hollister said.

"Where is the nearest town from here?"  Forbes asked.  He seemed ill at
ease as he took the food filled plate that Kitty handed to him.

"I reckon I'll ride out tomorrow and drift west.  Mebbe I can pick up a
little spread where I ain't known."

"That's my intention," Hollister told them, relieved that they had
taken his decision so calmly.

"But I'm not moving out of here for at least a week.  You know your way
around this country, Trig.  Pinker's Post is the nearest burg.  Up the
gulch, over the east ridge and down the cattle trail for thirty
miles."

"Yeah."  Forbes spoke through his teeth.

"Well, I'm going to spend a dollar or two there before going on.  I owe
me a good time."

"I'll ride with you, Trig," Palmer said.

"We'll sink a few together."

"No.  Likely these posses have got the descriptions of the men who did
the railroad job.  You travel alone until you're clear of this neck of
the woods, Frank.  We can meet up later if you like."

"Yeah.  Good idea."  Palmer began wolfing down his food, using the
knife he had thrown at John Clanton with such deadly result.

Kitty sat down beside Hollister.  There was a short silence while they
ate.  Outside the cave, night stole over the peaks and filled the
gullies and deep places with darkness.  The red sky of the west slowly
darkened, and when the stars took on their nocturnal brightness the
last vestige of sunlight had gone.

"I feel uneasy," Forbes said later.

"Those posse men won't give up.  I think I'll take a look around."

"You can have my turn at watch."  Palmer threw himself upon his
blanket.

"I'm plumb tuckered out.  It's been a hard day and no mistake.  You
must be all whipcord and iron, Ash, the way you kept going.  Well, if
the posse drops into this place they can have me for their luck.  I'm
gonna sleep two, mebbe three days."

Forbes removed his spurs and threw them upon his blanket spread near to
the mouth of the cave.  He checked his Colt and blew dust from the
mechanism.  Hollister was half asleep, with Kitty drowsing by his side,
when Forbes tiptoed out of the cave to check upon the ravine .. .

Palmer was first awake in the morning, and when the knife man stood up
he awakened Hollister, who rolled on to his back and stared at the
bright sunshine flooding the cave mouth.

"Heck," Palmer said.

"Trig must be tougher than we figured.  He's up and about already."

"Perhaps he fell asleep when he went out there last night," Hollister
said.

"We'll probably find him dozing with the hosses."

"Yeah?"  Palmer was searching near his blankets.

"Where in heck did I put my saddle bags last night?

I thought I had 'em near my haid when I went to sleep."

"You brought them up from the meadow," Hollister told him, suddenly
wide awake.

"I saw them on your shoulder as you came up the path."  He threw off
his blanket and stood up, his eyes studying Forbes' bed space.

"Trig's have gone too."

"What?"  Palmer sprang across the cave mouth.

"Has that dirty skunk run out on us?"  He grabbed at his boots and
hastily pulled them on.  Then he picked up his belt, festooned with gun
and knives, and buckled it around his waist as he ran from the cave.

Hollister dressed more slowly, his mind alive with conjecture.  He
strapped on his gunbelt and picked up his hat.  Standing in the cave
mouth, he watched Palmer go plunging recklessly down to where they had
left the horses.  He followed more slowly, breathing deeply of the
warm, sweet air, glancing up at the bright sky from where, very soon,
the sun would be tormenting the earth.

Palmer came raging out of the rocks like a wounded bear, his eyes wide
and furious.  The big man had drawn his gun in his rage, and ran hither
and thither, searching for Trig Forbes.  Hollister having realised that
Forbes was gone, stood waiting for Palmer to come back to him.

"The dirty, double-crossing pack rat Palmer cursed.

"He's lit out with my dough, and me and him have ridden the trails for
six years.  He's took my cut.  Me, Frank Palmer, robbed by a saddle
pard!  I'll get him for that.  I'll ride him down and slit his throat
if it takes me the rest of my life.  He mentioned Pinker's Post last
night, didn't he?"

"Then you can bet it'll be the last place he'll visit,"

Hollister said.

"I figure you must be getting old, Frank.  Me, I used my money for a
pillow, and it's still in the cave.  You're getting careless,
friend."

"Yeah.  But Forbes has made a mistake now," Palmer snarled!

"He stole from me.  Well, I'll teach him a new trick when I get up with
him, the low snake."

Palmer went storming to the cave and Hollister followed.  Kitty was
preparing breakfast.  Palmer rolled his blanket.  The knife man did not
speak until he was ready to leave.

"There won't be a hole small enough for him to crawl into," he vowed.

"I'll ride into Pinker's Post first, unless I pick up his trail.  I
figure he'll head for the nearest town to lose himself in a crowd.  You
staying on here.  Ash?"

"Yeah.  There are too many lawmen abroad for me.  Watch your step,
Frank.  Those posses aren't in the mood for playing games.  If they've
got your description, and they get their hands on you " Hollister left
the sentence unfinished.

"I can take care of myself."  Palmer started to the cave mouth.

"I mebbe will see you around, Ash.  You've been a straight guy with us
all round.  So long."

"So long, Frank."  Hollister watched the big knife man go down the
path. A few moments later, mounted, his head bent forward and his eyes
looking for sign, Palmer rode out of the ravine on the trail of his
erstwhile saddle partner.

Hollister stood in the cave mouth for a long time, looking down into
the ravine.  It was Fate, he thought, that Forbes should plan a
double-cross which would take Palmer away to leave him and Kitty alone.
Now, he realised, he was free of the old life and at liberty to start
planning the bright future with the girl he loved.  He turned and went
into the cave.

"Has he really gone?"  Kitty asked.

"I was a little afraid of him.  I wouldn't want to be in Forbes' boots
right now."

"Yeah, he's gone.  He'll get Trig, too.  Frank's got an eye like an
Injun, and he's as full of tricks, all mean.  But Palmer was white to
his pards.  He never bullied his friends or threw his weight around,
yet everyone was a little afraid of him.  I seen him kill a man with
his bare hands for just a little thing.  But you could rely on Frank.
He never disobeyed an order or added to it.  You told him a thing and
it was done like you said.  Trig sure pulled a fool trick when he
lifted Frank's dough.  I wouldn't want Palmer dogging my footsteps.
He's a man got to be killed before he'll drop a trail."

"Well, I'm glad he's gone," Kitty said.

"What are we going to do now, Ash?"

"I'm considering that some," he replied.

"I'm wondering if we should ride now and risk running into one of those
posses, or stay here awhile and take a chance that Palmer will not come
riding back.  If he did show up again before we quit we'd never get rid
of him."

"Are you very well known around here, Ash?  Would any posse be able to
recognise you?"

"I wouldn't like to trust my neck to odds on riding through them."  He
laughed harshly.

"I operated in these parts for a long time.  That money there," he
indicated the bulging saddle bags, "came from banks all within a
hundred miles of this place."

"Have you killed many people.  Ash?"

"No," he answered truthfully.

"I've always been against wanton killing, more so during a raid, and
you can understand why.  The posses out now are all riled up because
Clanton did some mean killing.  But if there hadn't been any blood
spilt they would have given up when they lost the trail."  He smiled.

"You got any more questions?"

"Yes.  Do you want breakfast?"

"I do."  He crossed to her and lifted her to her feet away from the
sizzling pan.

"I want breakfast, and I want you.  I want to ride into the nearest
town and buy you pretty things; clothes, hats, silks and bows.  I want
to see you decked out in all that flimsy finery that ladies back east
wear to those fancy shindigs that they always have.  We got the money
now, and I can't wait to start spending it.  I've waited too long to
turn over a new leaf.  Let's get started today.  I know a trail through
these mountains that will take us clear of the law.  It's a long,
dangerous route, but it'll give us a head start into that bright new
future we both want so much."

"Don't be hasty, Ash," she warned.

"We don't want anything to happen that will spoil everything.  If you
think it's safe here then let's stay awhile.  You need to rest up.
You're not your old self yet.  Come and eat and we'll talk.  I'm
wondering where you plan on settling down."

They ate breakfast, and Hollister talked with the girl, revelling in
her attention.  They laughed together, and he forgot the hardness that
was in him, and wondered if he had been all that his reputation
boasted.  Inside his secret self, where his conscience dwelled and
there was nothing false, no illusions, he knew he was not at heart the
badman men called him.  He felt that some evil force had subjected his
own will, that all his criminal activities had been part of some
horrible nightmare from which there was no awakening.

He daydreamed about the future, lost in wonderful thoughts that carried
him far from these harsh surroundings, back into a more civilised world
he had all but forgotten, where a man carried an elegant cane and not a
Colt.  He looked at the bulging saddlebags containing the magic key to
their dream world, then reached out and pulled the girl tenderly
towards him, overwhelmed by his love and cascading emotions.  She came
gladly, her heart singing, a willing slave to this strange man who had
been an outlaw.

It was then Hollister's instincts deserted him.  His sixth sense was
blotted out under the many startling feelings the girl had aroused in
him.  He gave no thought to danger until he heard an exultant laugh at
his back.  He pushed Kitty from him and turned his head towards the
cave mouth.  His lips tightened.  Trig Forbes stood blackly outlined in
the strong sunlight, and there was a menacing six gun in the outlaw's
steady hand.

Chapter Seven

"WELL, WELL," said Forbes.

"So this is what you get up to when you're alone, Ash.  I never had you
figured for a ladies' man.  Get up real slow and ease your gun out.
Don't make any quick moves.  I'm a mite nervous this morning.  I'm
always like it when I lose a lot of sleep.  You stay right where you
are, girlie.  I'll tend to you in a minute."

"What's your game, Trig?"  Hollister demanded.

"You suffering from a touch of the sun?  You've got Palmer on your
trail now.  Why did you pull a fool trick like that?"

"It went off exactly as I planned," Forbes said exultantly.

"Palmer's gone chasing two days' ride into Pinker's Post, and I put you
off your guard, Ash.  I fooled the great Ash Hollister.  You must be
getting old."

"And you're too greedy.  Trig.  You should have run with Palmer's
dough.  You made a mistake coming back for mine."

"Not your dough, Ash, though I'll take it of course.  I want the girl.
What in hell do you think I am?  I ain't seen a woman in weeks, and you
bring one into the camp.  You ain't got much thought for your pards.
Well, I want her, and I'm going to have her.  You're as good as dead.
Ash.  I'm real sorry it's got to end like this.  We been together a
long time.  You know any prayers, you'd better get them said."

"No!"  The anguished cry was wrung from Kitty's trembling lips, and the
girl sprang up and hurled herself at Forbes, angling her body as a
shield between the two men.

Hollister moved with the speed of light.  He had not yet thrown down
his gun, had been waiting for the slimmest chance of overpowering
Forbes.  Kitty's action distracted the outlaw for the merest second,
and when the man's eyes flickered to the girl, Hollister grabbed for
his gun.  Forbes shouted in panic, and his attention snapped back to
Hollister, who was already lifting his gun.  Kitty appeared in the line
of fire.  Forbes tilted his muzzle and squeezed off a shot at
Hollister's head.  The cave reverberated to the shocking crash.
Hollister cried out and spun away.  He dropped his gun.  A terrific
impact against his skull blotted out light and sound, and he fell to
the ground and rolled limply.

"You've killed him," Kitty screamed, and launched herself at the
excited Forbes.

"You've killed Ash."

Forbes met the girl with a heavy, open-handed blow that thudded against
her jaw and flung her into a sobbing heap at his feet.  He stepped over
her and warily approached the apparently lifeless Hollister.  There was
a sharp stinging pain in Forbes' left arm near the elbow, but he
ignored it and bent over Hollister.

Hollister was lying on his back against the far wall of the cave.  His
hat had been knocked from his head.  His face was drenched with fast
congealing blood which had poured from the wound in his skull above the
left ear.

Forbes grunted his satisfaction.  He holstered his gun and picked up
the weapon Hollister had dropped.  Forbes felt shaky.  It had been a
close thing.  Hollister had actually drawn his gun in the time it took
Forbes to squeeze his trigger.

He picked up the saddlebags, grinning at their weight, and slapped them
joyfully.  A hundred thousand dollars all told, he thought, and all
mine.  He looked at the sobbing girl and his eyes glistened.

"Stop that whining," he said harshly.

"Get up and come here."  His lips thinned, for the girl did not move.

"It's okay if you want it rough.  I'm the boss round here now
Hollister's dead.  I just about blew his head off.  Get up and come
here."

The girl did not move.  Forbes let his eyes feed on her crouched
figure, savouring the scene like a hungry dog licking his chops over an
unexpected bone.  He crossed to her and stood looking down, his savage
instincts aroused.

"I said get up."  He reached down and grasped her shoulder, pulling her
up with strong, cruel fingers.

"You'd better do like I say or it'll be worse for you."

She turned on him with the frenzied strength of a lioness, and her
fingernails raked his face, clawing his eyes and mouth.  She cried in
an unintelligible jumble of curses.  Forbes tried to subdue her with
brute strength, but found his left arm painful and almost useless when
he exerted his power.

They wrestled until the girl tripped and fell, dragging him down with
her.  Forbes landed atop her, and threw a leg across her lower body to
pin her down.  He lay upon her left arm and seized her right wrist,
pulling the raking nails away from his bleeding, scoured face.  Hot
pain furrowed his cheeks, mouth and forehead.  He twisted her wrist
viciously.

"You hellcat," he panted, forcing her arm above her head.

"I'll teach you to do like you're told."  He saw droplets of his blood
spatter upon her face.  Her eyes were blazing with madness, grief and
hatred, and it took all of his considerable strength to hold her
down.

Her strength finally ebbed, and the sight of dawning despair in her
eyes quickened his own senses.  He laughed triumphantly, a crazy sound
that echoed round the cave, and forced her right arm higher until he
could hold it above her head with his painful left arm.  He could feel
her left arm, pinned beneath him, clawing at his back.  He kept
laughing insanely.

"Now I've got you," he gasped.  He grabbed a handful of her blouse and
ripped it viciously with a twisting motion.  She struggled helplessly
in his grasp.  He thrust his bloody face down at her, smearing both of
them with streaming blood that welled up from the agonising furrows her
nails had gouged in his flesh.

"I'll tame you," he vowed.

"You ain't Hollister's woman no more.  You're mine."

She was powerless in his lustful grip, his weight almost suffocating.
She screamed once, a strident shriek of agony which he cut off with a
heavy slap across her mouth.  She whimpered for a long time,
shuddering, until she mercifully lost her senses .. .

Forbes remained at the cave for three hours, during which time the girl
lay unmoving on the blankets where he had left her.  From time to time
he glanced at her, but she lay as dead, only her harsh breathing and
quivering shoulders indicating that she lived.  Forbes washed himself,
wincing and cursing as he bathed his lacerated face.  But he kept
grinning to himself despite the pain, remembering how he had mastered
her.  His painful left arm, he found, was burned by the bullet he had
fired at Hollister, which had ricocheted after striking down the man.

When he felt fit enough to travel, Forbes crossed to the girl and
dragged her upright.  Her blouse was in shreds, torn completely from
one shoulder, and his eyes glistened at sight of her flesh, now bruised
and patched by his rough handling.  She leaned against him as if
drained of all energy, and he slapped her face until she opened her
listless eyes.

"I'm riding now," he told her roughly, "and you're going with me.  I
ain't done with you yet, not by a long rope.  If you play your cards
right you'll be okay.  I ain't a hard man, and I'm free with my dough
when I got any and have I got some now!  One hundred thousand dollars!
I'll look after you, girlie.  You just forget Ash Hollister and fix
yourself up for riding.  Better get one of Ash's clean shirts from his
war bag  You ride like this today," he indicated her torn clothing,
"and the sun will burn you raw."

He turned away and picked up the saddlebags, carrying them to the cave
mouth and dropping them in readiness for moving out.  He culled over
the supplies and sacked some, putting them beside the saddlebags.  Then
he turned to the girl, who had divested herself of the ruined blouse
and was now wearing one of Hoi-lister's shirts.

"Good," Forbes said.

"Now let's get out of this.  You take the supplies.  Pick 'em up and
carry 'em down to the horses.  I'll take care of the dough.  Get
moving."

Kitty threw a glance at the prone figure of Hollister, then moved
slowly to obey the outlaw.

"Wait," Forbes commanded.

"We're forgetting the blankets."  He laughed.

"I figure we'll need a couple to cuddle up in.  Get two, and hurry it
up.  Snap out of it, girlie.  We got a lot of riding to do before we
can start spending some of that folding stuff."

When they were at last ready to leave, Forbes pushed the girl in front
of him.  She stumbled down the path, carrying the stores and the
blankets.  Her eyes were swollen with tears, her face bruised from
Forbes' rough treatment.  Her body was one unending ache, and her soul
burned with disgust and the flaming desire to avenge the death of the
man she had loved.

Forbes kept a close eye on Kitty as he saddled a horse for her.  But
the girl gave him no trouble.  She seemed not to be aware of her
surroundings, and there was a faraway look in her eyes that bespoke of
shock.

"We're riding back the way we came yesterday," he told her as they left
the ravine.

"I don't want to go into Tinker's Post.  Poor old Palmer is burning up
the trail in that direction.  We're going back to the other hideout,
where we left Nixon lying for the posse.  No one will think to look for
us there.  The posse has already checked the place, and like Ash said,
they won't cover the same ground twice.  We'll rest up for a few days
and get to know each other without all that scratching and wrassling we
had today.  I'll treat you right, girlie, if you go along with me.  You
ain't got much choice, anyhow, so you might as well make the best of
it."  He grinned malevolently.

"There ain't no one round here but us.  Just think of all that dough we
got to spend."

He glanced back at the pack horse he was leading, his eyes shining as
he gloated over the well-filled saddlebags.  One hundred thousand
dollars, he mused.  That would surely take a lot of spending.  He began
to shape some plans for the future, glancing from time to time at the
silent, bemused girl.  She didn't come to much, he thought, and
couldn't understand what Hollister had seen in her.  Well, she'd serve
her purpose until they reached some town.  Then he'd give her a couple
hundred bucks and send her packing.  He grinned at that.  Good old
soft-hearted Trig Forbes!  He wouldn't cut her loose penniless.

They rode silently through the long, sun-filled hours, retracing their
steps of the previous day, and Kitty sat her saddle like a carved idol,
wrapped up in her thoughts, lost in the welter of grief which had
swamped her in that shot crashing second when Hollister was gunned
down.  But in the midst of the seething turmoil in her mind was the one
flame-clear thought; that she would kill the man who had slain the man
she loved, who had violated her body, the flesh she had so lovingly
given to Ash Hollister.

Forbes had several times tried to draw her into conversation, but
finally gave it up when he failed to get even a solitary word from her
compressed lips.  But he watched her carefully all the time, aware that
she might be harbouring some desire for revenge.

"We ain't making such fast time as we did yesterday," he said, when
they began traversing the long ridge.

"Say what you like, Ash was a good boss.  He kept all of us on our
toes.  Mind how you move along there.  I'd hate for you to go over the
edge.  It's a long way to the bottom."

They camped that night in a cluster of rocks, and she prepared a meal
under his close supervision.  He off-saddled the horses and
knee-hobbled them, leaving the animals to browse in the scorched
vegetation that sparsely covered the surrounds of a stagnant pool they
found at the foot of a bluff.

"We'll sleep over there," he said, pointing to a corner of the rocks.

"It'll be real cold tonight.  There ain't enough driftwood to keep the
fire going all night.  I reckon that gives me one good reason for
snuggling up to you, honey."

Later, when Forbes was snoring, one leg thrown heavily across her to
keep her at his side, Kitty felt grief well up in her heart.  She
couldn't believe that Ash was dead, and her mind recalled the dreadful
moment when Forbes had fired the fatal shot.  The full horror of the
incident made her cringe, and she tried to shrink from the flesh of the
man who had killed her beloved.

She was quite determined to kill Forbes at the first opportunity, and
lay listening to his stentorous breathing while she toyed with the ways
and means.  He had watched her carefully all day, she knew, but
realised that the passage of time would blunt his vigilance.  If she
waited a week or longer he would begin to think that she had forgotten
Ashley Hollister.  She stifled her tears in fear that she might awaken
him and, utterly worn out, fell asleep into blankness.

Forbes was at her the next morning before the sun had risen, and she
suffered in silence the indignities he forced upon her, trying to blank
her mind to the present, holding on to her sanity by concentrating upon
her desire for revenge.  She had decided to seize his gun at the first
opportunity, and then he would pay for his black deeds.

Before they moved out, Forbes took three-quarters of the money and
buried it in a hole he scraped in loose shale beneath a huge rock.  The
girl watched him in silence, with sunken eyes that were dull in her
gaunt face.  He grinned at her.

"I ain't taking any chances," he said.

"I can always come back, for that when the heat is off round here.  And
if Palmer does come up with me at any time I'll have breathing space to
get at him.  Old Frank is mighty quick-tempered, but he wouldn't kill
me until he's got his hands on all the dough."

By mid-afternoon they were only a mile or two from the hideout they had
left so hurriedly on the previous day to escape the posse.  Forbes was
half asleep in his saddle.  Kitty was slumped forward, feeling the heat
of the sun as a tremendous weight upon her aching shoulders.

"It'll be a whole lot cooler in the cave," Forbes remarked.

"I reckon we'd better hit the sack early tonight.  I'm sure tuckered
out."

She shuddered to think of his rough hands upon her, and over and over
again she repeated Hollister's name under her breath.  She closed her
eyes against the brilliance of the sun, her head full of pain, which
throbbed at her temples with each jolting step of her horse.  She
prayed ceaselessly for the opportunity to get Forbes, and it was the
hope for revenge that buoyed her flagging spirit when nerves and heart
cried out enough.

Forbes suddenly uttered a frightful curse and sat bolt upright in his
saddle.  They were riding along the rough floor of the canyon towards
the cave when several riders approached from the opposite direction and
came pounding towards them.  Without thinking, Forbes grabbed the reins
of Kitty's horse and wheeled around.  He rode his own mount with
tightly clamped knees, leading the pack horse and the girl's mount.

"Possemen," he cursed.

"Of all the lousy luck!  Come on, start urging that bronc of yours.  We
gotta make tracks, and fast."

They went back swiftly the way they had come, and Kitty did her best to
delay their progress.  Forbes was cursing fervently, and kept looking
back at the five pursuing horsemen.

"They're coming up on us," he shouted.

"Ride faster."

They maintained a full gallop, which was dangerous in this rough
terrain, and then their mounts began to tire.  The posse men opened
fire, but were at extreme range for Colt-work, and Forbes showed his
teeth in a snarl.  It all depended upon the freshness of the horses the
posse men were riding.  He looked back, and saw with relief that two of
the men were straggling, and another was coming ahead of the other
two.

"Good," he shouted.

"If they split up I'll do for them."  He shouted encouragement at their
mounts, and they swept on among the rocks.  The mounts laboured up a
stiff incline, and Forbes' animal faltered as it reached the crest.  He
cursed and as the animal slowed, blundering almost to its knees, he
jerked his rifle from the scabbard and jumped clear.

Kitty reined in.  She did not want to leave Forbes now.  She watched
him drop flat and crawl back to the slope.  If only she had a gun, she
thought.  But perhaps these lawmen would take care of Forbes.  She sat
her mount to wait the outcome of the fight.

Forbes levered a shell into the breech.  Three of the pursuing riders
had just hit the bottom of the slope.  The other two were a long way
back.  Forbes wiped sweat from his sore face.  He threw a quick glance
at Kitty, who had dismounted and was leaning against her mount.  He
grinned.  So he had tamed her!  If she hated him for killing Hollister
she would have kept riding.  He returned his attention to the
approaching lawmen.

Forbes was an excellent shot with a rifle.  He had ridden the long
trails for twenty years, mixing with the worst elements attracted to
the young West.  He had to be good with guns to stay alive.  He did not
panic.  He waited until the foremost rider was only twenty yards away.
Then he lifted his rifle, took quick aim, and squeezed off a shot that
smashed the brooding silence and echoed sharply from every peak.

The leading rider jerked upright under the hammer blow of the speeding
bullet.  He fell from his saddle into the path of one of the other
horsemen, bringing horse and rider down in a threshing heap.  The third
man checked his upward rush and paused to look for cover.  Forbes
grinned.  He reloaded and took aim.  As the rider swung left Forbes put
a bullet into his back.

The posse man who had been brought down quickly regained his feet.  He
ran for his mount, which was hobbling across the slope on three legs.
Forbes sent a bullet into the man which stretched him screaming on his
back.  Then he lifted his glittering eyes and saw the last two riders
pull up short to consider their next move.

Forbes increased his range.  He fired at the right hand posse man and
watched the horse go down, the man springing clear.  Good shooting, he
thought, and fired at the second man.  Then he wormed his way back from
the crest, stood up and went to his horse.  He shoved his smoking rifle
back into leather and swung up into the saddle.

"Get mounted," he told the girl.

"We'd better move out of here.  I've surely stopped them some.  Fork
that bronc and push it hard."  He caught up the trailing reins of the
pack horse and rode up close to the girl.

"I just shot us out of a nasty situation," he added grimly.

"You'll never get away from them," she burst out.

"Now they know you're in this country they'll never give up looking."

"I got the money and I got you," he said.

"We got food enough for a week.  We could walk out of here if we
wanted.  They can't cover every mile of these mountains.  We'll get
out.  Then we've got a lot of spending to do.  You'd like that,
wouldn't you?  Yeah, sure you would.  How'd you like to go East and see
the big cities?  I could show you a thing or two, girlie.  You just
wait till we get clear."

They back-tracked for a mile, then Forbes led the way into a narrow
ravine.  The girl sat her horse and watched him blot out their tracks.
When he had finished he came up to her, grinning, placing a dirty hand
upon her thigh.

"They'll think we've kept going now we've had a brush with them.
They'll go chasing all over the country.  Well, we're gonna stay put
for a while."  He leered at her.

"We've got to stay in here, no prowling around.  Have you got any
suggestions for passing the time?"

"What do we do for shelter?"  she asked.

"What about a fire?  I'll have to cook, and boil water for coffee."

"That's all been taken care of," Forbes said.

"You got to admit that Ash knew his job.  There are a dozen places in
these mountains where we put up shelters and stored wood and water.
This ravine is one of them.  We all grumbled when Ash made us do it,
but right now I'm mighty glad he had savvy.  Poor old Ash!  He was a
good sort.  I'm almost sorry I had to kill him.  Never mind.  He
should've left you out of it.  I wouldn't have done it but for you.
Come on, climb down out of your saddle and I'll help you get rid of
your stiffness."

"Let's see this shelter before you think of other things," she said
tightly.

"That's my girl.  You're coming round to my way of thinking.  There's a
lean-to we built in here.  You'd never find it unless you looked real
hard.  That's how Ash did things."

"For God's sake don't keep on about him," she cried.

"He's dead, so let him lie."

"That's what I like to hear."  Forbes smiled broadly.

"Come on, let's get to that shelter and I'll help you shake the dust
out of the blankets.  I sure am glad I decided to have you around,
girlie."

"And you killed Ash just to have me," she muttered.

"Well, your turn will come.  Killer."

Chapter Eight

FRANK PALMER rode as if he was pursued by demons.  For an hour he
pushed his mount across solid stretches of bare rock, and all the time
his anger-filled eyes studied the ground for sign of Trig Forbes.  He
was following the only possible route to Tinker's Post, and passing
through a canyon, reined up with a grunt of satisfaction when he
spotted hoofprints in a drift of dust which the wind had banked against
one rocky wall.  He swung down from his saddle and bent to examine the
sign.  They were freshly made, he judged, for they were still deep and
clear cut.  He sat on his haunches for several minutes, watching the
dust falling back into the prints, and decided they had been made two,
maybe three hours before.

He rode on, eager to catch up with the double-crossing Forbes, and his
anger knew no bounds.  After all the trails they'd ridden together, he
fumed.  But what hurt him most was the knowledge that Forbes had dared
to rob him.  He was Frank Palmer, and no one ever took chances around
him.  At least, that was what he had thought until this day.

Ten miles slipped by beneath the pounding hooves of his big mount.  He
still watched for sign, but was not too hopeful in this rocky region.
His mind pondered the situation.  Palmer was not too intelligent, but
he possessed an abundance of natural cunning which stood him in good
stead.  But as he rode a small doubt raised its presence in his mind.
It nagged at his subconscious mind, but he could not put a name to it.
He rode on, struggling in his mind to form the doubt into a
comprehensible thought, but it stuck in the background like a burr to a
horse's mane.

It was when he followed his route into another canyon where a blanket
of dust covered the entire entrance that the doubt came flaring into
sense.  He reined in and stared at the unbroken surface of the dust.
Where were Forbes' tracks?  He twisted in his saddle and surveyed the
surrounding harsh country with critical eyes.  There was no other way
the fleeing outlaw could have ridden.  If Forbes was heading for
Pinker's Post then he must have come this way.  That Forbes had started
out for the town was borne out by those fresh tracks in that other
canyon.  Or did they point out Forbes' direction?  Palmer shook his
head as his mind cleared.  Now he had that nagging doubt in focus.

Forbes was a fleeing man.  Yet he had left some perfectly good tracks
to advertise his direction.  That didn't sound like Forbes, the trail
blotting expert.  Palmer remembered how the outlaw had removed signs of
their entrance into the ravine just before sundown the previous night.
Why had Forbes left obvious tracks in thick dust when he could have
skirted it on hard rock?

Palmer cursed as he stared at the unmarked dust patch before him.
Forbes couldn't have ridden through here without leaving tracks, and if
he had passed, blotting his trail as he went, the dust would be scoured
as if by a lashing wind.  So Forbes wasn't riding for Tinker's Post. He
had signposted the dust in the first canyon, then doubled back.  By
now, Palmer judged, glancing at the sun, Forbes had gained another four
hours' start.

With a muttered oath Palmer began to ride back.  He occupied the time
with cursing Forbes, and planning what he would do to the
double-crossing outlaw.

Back once more in the first canyon, staring down at the tell-tale
tracks, Palmer tried to figure out Forbes' moves.  He dismounted and
walked to the spot where the tracks came out of the dust.  There he
stood and cursed himself for the impatient fool he had been several
sweating hours ago.  He had known Forbes was a tricky cuss, and should
have expected something like this.

He studied the canyon, looking for the spot where Forbes would have
turned back, and walked into a narrow ravine which he had not noticed
from his saddle.  He lifted his gun, but knew that Forbes would be gone
now, even if he had been there the first time waiting for Palmer to
pass.

The ravine sloped upwards out of the canyon, and Palmer walked slowly
up the rough incline, his eye squinted against the glare of the sun
that came shafting down from a brassy sky.  There were no tracks in
this obdurate rock passage which had been cut in the wall of the canyon
by running water through countless centuries.  Near the top, he gave an
ejaculation of great joy, and hurried forward to examine a pile of
horse droppings.

"So you did play it smooth, Trig," he said aloud, his voice echoing in
the rocky place.

"Well, you ain't so danged clever.  Or mebbe you are too clever by
half.  You won't fool me again, hombre.  I know you now.  I reckon,
too, you'll take it easy from here on in, thinking I'm gonna ride clear
into Tinker's Post before stopping to look for you.  Well, I'm surely
gonna put some surprise on your face.  I'll get you, Forbes, before you
can get round to spending any of that dough."

Palmer went back to his horse.  He took a swig from his canteen before
resuming Forbes' trail.  Then he went on.  He kept grinning to himself,
relishing the scene he imagined would occur when he confronted Trig
Forbes again.  Goldarn it, he thought, if only I'd knowed yesterday
what Trig was hatching in that double-crossing brain of his I would
have cut out his black heart.

On the high ground, Forbes, sure that he had been clever enough to make
Palmer think he had ridden to Ponder's Post, hadn't bothered to conceal
his tracks.  Palmer even found a cigarette stub near a rock where
Forbes had got down for a rest.

The trail eventually led Palmer back into the gulch, and when it turned
into the ravine where he had left Hollister and the girl, Palmer's eyes
turned bleak.  He could see what had happened.  Forbes had taken his
money to get him out of the hideout.  Forbes had even laid a false
trail for him to follow.  Then he had come back into the ravine where
Hollister and the girl was.  So it had been a conspiracy.  Palmer
considered that as he slid off the back of his mount and led the animal
into the ravine.  He had thought at the time that Hollister took the
news of Forbes' defection too calmly.  Be that as it may!  Palmer drew
his gun and checked it.  He would kill both of them.  He'd teach the
world that no one stole from Frank Palmer and got away with it.

He left his horse concealed in some rocks and moved cautiously towards
the cave.  Tracks told their silent story to his skilled eyes.  Three
horses had left the ravine after he had ridden out in such a fury that
morning.  So Hollister had been in it.  The three of them had ridden
off when Forbes got through laying the false trail.

Palmer was almost beside himself in rage when he stalked into the cave.
He paused in the mouth, his eyes screwed up to pierce the gloomy
interior.  They'd left some grub, he saw.  That showed how fast they
had pulled their freight.  He hoped their haste was through fear of
him!  Then his eyes alighted upon the still figure of Hollister, and
his gun snapped into the aim.  He stood for a moment, considering the
situation.  There was blood on Hollister's head.  So Forbes had played
it alone, sneaking back in here and getting the jump on Hollister, then
going off with the money and the girl.  Palmer shook his head like an
awakening bear when he remembered the girl's scared eyes as she had
looked at him.  Well, he'd told her that Forbes was the one to watch.

He holstered the gun and crossed to Hollister, dropping to one knee and
bending over the prone figure.  He shook his head slowly at sight of
the bloody mess just above Hollister's left ear.  It looked like
curtains for the gang leader.  Palmer slid a surprisingly gentle hand
under Hollister's shirt in the region of the heart, and his eyes
glinted when he felt a regular throbbing beat.  The gang boss was still
alive!

A water canteen lay in one corner, and Palmer fetched it, stripping his
dusty bandana from his neck and soaking it with cool water.  He washed
away the congealed blood that covered Hollister's head, face and neck,
and was surprised to see that the wound wasn't nearly so bad as it had
looked.  He bound the wound as best he could, shaking his head in
wonderment at Hollister's close call.  Then he raised the unconscious
man and poured a little water down his throat.  He was rewarded with a
low moan.

"Sure wish I had something a little stronger, Ash," Palmer said
aloud.

"That would soon bring you round.  But now I guess we'll have to wait
on Nature."

Palmer picked up a rumpled blanket that Forbes had discarded, spread
it, and moved Hollister on to it.  He sighed as he stood for a moment
looking down on the man he had called boss.  Then he busied himself,
lit a fire and cooked a meal.  After he had eaten he took another look
at Hollister, then went down to attend his horse.

On his return, Palmer found Hollister stirring and groaning.  He bathed
the man's head, and gave him another drink.  Hollister's eyes
flickered, but did not open.  After several groans he lapsed back into
deep unconsciousness.

"That's okay, Ash," Palmer told him.

"You're doing okay, pard.  You'll mebbe come out of it the next time.
But I sure wish you'd hurry it up a bit.  Forbes is gaining a lot of
time on us, and I reckon you won't feel like riding for a day or two
when you do sit up.  I think I'll push on alone when you can take care
of yourself."

It was dark when Hollister stirred again, and Palmer threw more wood on
the fire and crossed to the wounded man.

"You back with me yet, Ash?"  he growled.

"Frank."  It was more a groan than a word.  Palmer dropped to his
knees.

"My head!  My skull feels like it's busted wide.  Kitty!  Where's
Kitty?"

"She's gone.  Ash.  So is Forbes and all our dough.  Now you lay still
awhile.  You took a bullet alongside your head that's done you a power
of harm.  Just take it easy until sunup.  Then we'll see what's what.
Anything you want?"

"Water.  I'm burning up."

Palmer gave Hollister a drink.  He put the stopper back in the canteen
and laid it aside.  He was about to question Hollister when he heard
the man's steady snoring.  Palmer sighed again.  He controlled his
impatience and went to his blanket and stretched out.  In the morning,
he thought grimly, he'd think about taking to Forbes' trail .. .

At dawn Hollister awoke with a start.  His head was throbbing madly.
Great darts of pain lanced across his ragged nerves.  At first his mind
was blank, and he could only stare up at the dim roof of the cave.  He
put his hands to his skull and clutched it tightly.  It felt as if a
great pressure had built up in his ears, and it hurt.  There was deep
sickness in his stomach.

Then his memory returned, and he called for Kitty.  He heard a sudden
movement nearby, and turned his head gingerly to see the massive bulk
of Frank Palmer rising up from his blanket.  He closed his eyes for a
moment as shooting twinges of pain became almost unbearable.

"How you feeling.  Ash?"

"Frank!  Why, I thought you'd be riding into Pinker's Post about
now."

"Yeah."  Palmer grinned wolfishly.

"I reckon Trig's got the same idea.  Mebbe you feel up to telling me
what happened after I pulled out yesterday."

"I wish I knew the half of it.  Where's Kitty?"

"Gone with Forbes.  Leastways, she ain't here."

"He got the drop on me," Hollister said harshly.

"He was all set to gun me down in cold blood.  Kitty jumped him and I
pulled my gun.  Then blam, the lights went out."

"I neajdy fell for Forbes' plan," Palmer said.

"But I came back.  I found tracks of three horses in the ravine, Ash,
and for a moment figured you was in it with Trig.  I should've known
better, I guess.  Then I found you here.  You looked plenty dead to me.
It's a good job I had a closer look at you, or I'd have gone off and
left you lying.  How you feeling, pard?"

"Wishing I was dead.  This head of mine will never be the same.  Help
me up, Frank.  I couldn't feel any worse standing."

Palmer lifted Hollister bodily and stood him on his feet as if he were
a child.  Hollister clung to the big outlaw as his senses tilted and
spun.  He was amazed to find that the pressure suddenly diminished and
the pain in his head lessened.

"Any better?"  Palmer asked anxiously.

"Yeah.  My thinking is straightened out, too.  Give me some water,
Frank.  I'm parched."

Palmer handed over the canteen and Hollister drank.  Then he poured
some water into his cupped hands and dashed it into his face.  He
immediately felt better, and poured a quantity of water over his head,
letting it run over his face and trickle down his chest.

"That's a whole lot better," he said.

"But I got a feeling I'm going to wear this headache for a day or
two."

"You just sit down and take it easy.  I'll rustle up some grub, and
afterwards we can talk about what we're gonna do."

Hollister nodded.  He went slowly to the cave mouth and stood looking
into the ravine while terrible thoughts ran through his aching head.
Where was Kitty?  What had Forbes done to her?  Where had the outlaw
headed after leaving the hideout?  He turned back to the busy Palmer.

"I reckon Forbes figured that I was dead, Frank.  Mebbe he's got wise
at last and gone back to the old hideout.  It's in the opposite
direction to Tinker's Post.  He said, before he shot me, that he'd got
it all worked out."

"Yeah.  We'd better try the old hideout first, Ash."  Palmer grinned.

"I want him when we do come up."

"I'll kill him if he's as much as laid a finger on Kitty," Hollister
vowed.

"He's marked for death," said Palmer.

"Will you be fit to ride today?"

"I'm ready and raring to go.  If I fall out of my saddle, Frank, stick
me back and rope me there.  But don't stop.  We've got to get up with
Forbes as soon as possible."

"We're thinking alike, Ash.  Come on, let's eat, then get moving.  Good
thing Forbes thought you were dead.  He left your bronc down there in
the ravine.  Figured you wouldn't want it no more.  He'll get the shock
of his life when he claps eyes on the pair of us."

"If we ever get up with him."  Hollister sat down gingerly and took the
filled plate that Palmer held out to him.

"That coffee sure smells good, Frank."

It was a long day for Hollister.  At first he was heartened by the sign
they found of three horses travelling back over the same route they had
used coming from the first hideout.  They both were certain that Forbes
had decided to return whence they came, but Palmer kept a close eye on
the trail, and ejaculated every time he saw fresh sign.

After an hour Hollister began to sway in his saddle.  The strong sun
dazzled his eyes with its glare, adding to the ache already in his
skull.  He was gasping for breath when Palmer called a halt, and slid
unsteadily from his saddle and slumped to the ground in the shade of a
rock.  Palmer attended to the horses.  Then he came and sat down beside
Hollister.

"You're making heavy work of it.  Ash.  Shall I push on while you
follow slow?"

"No."  Hollister held his head in his hands.

"We'd best stick together, Frank.  There's no telling what may come up.
Give me a couple of minutes, then we'll go on.  I was thinking awhile
back; I ain't got a gun."

"You can have mine."  Palmer slid the weapon across.

"I'm more partial to a knife for close work.  And I mean to get very
close to Forbes."

They went on, and Hollister dozed in his saddle.  At nightfall they
pushed on at a fast rate to reach the cluster of rocks and water hole
where Forbes had hidden three-quarters of the money.  When they
arrived, Hollister grabbed his blanket and fell to the ground.  He lay
like a dead man until morning .. .

"Well," Palmer said at dawn.

"I figger we'll come up with Forbes sometime today, if he is at the old
hideout."  He looked up from the breakfast he was cooking.

"You sure you're feeling stronger, Ash?"

"Yeah.  I'm almost as good as new.  I can't feel much of my head this
side, but I'll take your word for it that it's all there.  How much
longer I got to wait for that coffee?"

"Coming up."  Palmer grinned.

"I been thinking about all that money.  What we gonna do?"

"We ain't got it yet.  But I guess it'll split real easy right down the
middle.  That sound square to you?"

"Sure does.  I can't wait to get my hands on it."

They ate, then prepared to ride.  Hollister took a quick look around
the rocks while Palmer filled their canteens.  He actually toed the
spot where Forbes had buried the money, then went to his mount.

"Find anything?"  Palmer asked.

"Nope.  You ready to ride, Frank?"

"Yep.  Here's your water."  Palmer handed over a canteen, then dropped
it before Hollister could take it.  Hollister, surprised, made an
instinctive grab for it with his gun hand  Then he whipped his hand
back to his belt as Palmer plucked a knife from his waist sheath.
Palmer grabbed his gun hand

"Quiet.  I hear horses.  Three of them."

Before Hollister could recover from his surprise the big outlaw turned
and ran for the nearest rock.  Hollister followed.  He was trembling
with reaction from the shock Palmer had given him.  For a moment there
he had thought Palmer was drawing against him.

Palmer peered around the rock, then ducked back.  Hollister was content
to let the big knife man take the initiative.  He was still far from
feeling his old self.

"Two riders," Palmer hissed.

"Lawmen by the looks of them.  They've got a pack horse.  They're
following our sign, but they're running smack into trouble.  Let's take
'em as they ride past."

"No killing," Hollister warned.

"There's no telling how many of them there are running loose in these
mountains.  We don't want to make it any worse than it has to be."

"Right.  You cover them with the gun."

Hollister drew the Colt.  He could hear the approaching riders quite
clearly.  There was an old man and a younger one, he saw, as they came
riding by.  The younger turned his head as he passed the rock, and his
eyes widened when he saw the crouching outlaws.

"Throw them up."  Hollister called.

"I've got you covered.  Sit nice and easy and you won't get hurt."

The riders reined in.  Palmer moved away from the rock.

"Get down," he ordered, a knife in his hand.

"Don't try anything or you'll get this blade in your neck.  We ain't
harming anyone if you play it our way."

The younger lawman looked as if he might argue, but both men swung
reluctantly from their saddles and stood with hands raised above their
heads.  Palmer quickly disarmed them.

"These will be two of the men we're looking for, Joe," said the eldest
lawman, who was wearing a deputy sheriff's star.

"Yeah."  The younger one stared coolly at Hollister.

"Too bad we weren't a mite more careful."

"No one will get hurt," Hollister said.

"Just do like you're told and it'll be all right."

"You're one of the three jaspers who held up the train south of Bent
Forks," the deputy said, looking at Palmer.

"Can't mistake you from the descriptions we got.  You'll never get away
with this.  There are three hundred lawmen surrounding these mountains,
searching all the time, and they're slowly closing in.  Where are the
rest of your gang?"

"We're hunting the same man you want," Hollister said.

"We don't want you poking in until we've settled him, so I guess you'll
have to be inconvenienced some."

"When thieves fall out," remarked the younger lawman.

"Why don't you throw down that gun and make things easier for
yourselves?"

"Cut the gab."  Palmer turned to Hollister.

"What we going to do about them, Ash?"

"Ash," repeated the deputy sheriff.

"Ash is short for Ashley.  Yeah, I thought I knowed your face, hombre.
I've seen it on the notice-board outside the office.  You're Ashley
Hollister, the leader of the wild bunch who shot up the train."

"I wasn't on that raid," Hollister said grimly.

"The man who did all the shooting is dead."

"We know," said Joe, the younger lawman.

"We found his body in some rocks."  He glanced at Palmer.

"There was a knife wound in his throat."

"I killed him okay," Palmer admitted.

"He had it coming a long time."

"Why'd you fall out?"  The deputy sheriff leaned back against his
horse.  To Hollister it seemed that he was playing for time.

"We heard that the third train robber was found dead near your old
hideout; the one you all tailed out've two days back."

"A gunman plugged him," Palmer growled.

"He died on us, so we left him.  I hope your pards buried him
decent."

"You'll all get Christian burials," said Joe, the young lawmen.

"And that'll be today if you turn around before you drop your weapons.
There's a shotgun at your backs and a lawman behind it.  You didn't
think we'd just come wandering in here, did you?"

There was a short silence.  Then Palmer spoke.

"That's as old as these hills, mister.  You'll have to do better than
that."

"Think so," said a harsh voice at their backs.

"Well, try turning and find out if it is a bluff.  I got you two dead
to rights."

Hollister stood as if turned to ice.  Palmer uttered an enraged oath.
The big outlaw cursed and spun, dropping into a crouch as he moved.
There was the heavy explosion of a shotgun's powerful charge, and
Palmer was struck in the chest and stomach by a whirling load of
buckshot.  He was battered to the ground and blood gushed from his
multiple wounds.  The echoes of the shot sounded again and again,
growing ever fainter.  They were still sullenly giving voice when
Hollister opened his fingers and let Palmer's Colt slip to the
ground.

The lawman did not stop Hollister as he stepped to Palmer's side.
Palmer was saturated in blood, and a scarlet stream of it had spurted
from his mouth, spraying all over his face.  As Hollister bent over
him, Palmer tried to speak.  But he choked on the blood in his throat.
He made gurgling sounds, arched his back, then slumped limply.
Hollister watched the staring eyes begin to glaze.

He was still shocked by the sudden turn of events when his hands were
manacled.

Chapter Nine

"WE'RE GETTING OUT of these mountains today," Trig Forbes told Kitty.

"Pack those things and we'll be moving.  We got thirty thousand dollars
in these saddlebags, and it's time some of it got used up.  Come on,
stop mooning around and use your hands.  After that shooting I did
yesterday the posses will be crawling around under every rock."  He
paused and studied the girl.

"I'm treating you all right, ain't I?  Wait until you get your hands on
some of my dough.  You'll think the sun comes up on the other side of
the mountains."

Forbes had thought long about the situation, and believed that the
longer he stayed in the mountains the less chance he would have of
getting clean away.  He remembered that once before the mountains had
been combed for a badman.  Instead of running, the man hid out.  He had
finished up hanging from the big tree in the square at Mesquite City.

Forbes still kept a wary eye on the girl, realising that he had used
her pretty roughly, apart from killing the man she loved.  But he
thought that what he lacked in masculine appeal was balanced by the
money he possessed.  Forbes felt that he was a square guy from any
angle.

Kitty gave him no cause for alarm.  She wanted to allay his suspicions,
and had endured his advances although her flesh crawled at his touch.
But her mind was centred upon the thought of revenge.  She passed the
hours considering ways and means.  She had twice fought the temptation
to snatch the gun from his holster and blast him into eternity.  But
she had been afraid of fumbling, knowing how quick Forbes was.  She
knew he would never give her a second chance if she failed the first.
Her real reason for passing up the opportunities, however, was that she
wanted Forbes to know he was going to die by her hand.  She wanted to
see how he stood in the face of death, if he would be as brave as
Hollister had been.

They travelled cautiously that day.  Forbes was taking no chances. They
kept to high ground wherever possible, making detours around every
likely place of ambush.  He studied slopes and skylines before moving,
and they headed south, following the general decline of the ground as
the mountains gave way to their foothills.

"We're gonna make it," Forbes announced when they stopped once to
eat.

"We've got to pass through a valley that might be tricky.  After that,
we'll be in the clear.  Pour me some coffee, girlie."

When they reached the valley and he dismounted to go forward to study
the ground, Kitty, still mounted, edged her horse in beside his.  Her
eyes were wide with nervy tension, fixed upon the glinting rifle in his
saddle-holster.  She touched the weapon and eased it clear of leather.
Triumph flooded her as she cocked it.

"Forbes," she shrieked, levelling the weapon at his prone figure some
forty yards away.  She waited until he turned his head towards her, and
she laughed insanely at sight of his startled face.

"This is for Ash," she yelled at him, and triggered the weapon as fast
as she could reload.

Dust spurted around Forbes, and the outlaw sprang up and dived over the
rim of the slope and rolled down into cover.  His fear fled as he
landed heavily, and above his head a stream of bullets whined through
space.  Forbes counted the shots.  The rifle had been loaded with eight
brass shells, and when the eighth slug had bored harmlessly across the
valley he climbed back over the rim.

When he reappeared, his face ugly with black passion, Kitty threw the
rifle to the ground.  She sat immobile while Forbes stalked towards
her.  He was only a few feet away when she jabbed her mount with sharp
spurs and jumped the animal at him.  Forbes gave a yell of fright as
the bronc reared above him.  He hurled himself sideways to avoid the
flailing hooves.

Kitty was screaming in fury.  She wheeled the horse and kept right at
the scurrying Forbes.  Again he jumped clear at the last instant, when
it seemed that he must go under the flashing, steel-shod hooves.  He
cursed her, yelling for her to cool off.  He slipped and fell as she
passed him, and he lay for a moment, watching her trying to pull around
the head of her horse.  She had eyes only for Forbes; wide, blazing
eyes that chilled him.

For the third time the horse and crazed woman came prancing at him.
Forbes tried to get up, but a sharp pain in his right ankle make him
drop back in agony.  The horse came boring down upon him, its eyes
rolling in fear, champing on the bit and foaming at the nostrils.

Forbes pulled his Colt.  He fired two swift shots that took the animal
in the head, and it came crashing down with a shrill cry of agony.  The
girl was flung out of the saddle.  Forbes saw her bounce off the hard
rock before rolling on her face.  The horse threshed its hooves in
death, barely missing Forbes with shod steel.  He sagged for a moment,
listening to the sullen echoes of the shots which had saved his life.

"I oughta kill you," he shouted hoarsely at the prone girl.

"There are four men down there in that valley, and I bet those shots
have got them killing their broncs in this direction.  They're lawmen,
and I reckon they've got this neck of the woods sewed up tight.  We'll
have to go back now and try another route."

The girl did not answer.  Her face was turned away from him.  He
frowned, and made an effort to get up.  Sweat poured down his face as
he put his weight upon his right leg.  Arrows of pains stabbed through
his ankle.  He gritted his teeth and hobbled towards the girl.  She was
unconscious.  He ran his hands over her, feeling for broken bones, but
thought her to be intact.  He straightened, teetering on his injured
leg.

Thought of the four horsemen down in the valley, vital links in a thin
chain of lawmen that was slowly pulling tight around him, made Forbes
hurry.  He hobbled to his mount, bending to pick up his empty rifle and
pausing to thrust it back into its boot, then swung awkwardly into the
saddle.  He let his right foot dangle clear of the stirrup, finding it
easier to ride that way.  He took after the pack horse, which had run
into some rocks.  When he got back the girl was sitting up.

"Get up," he shouted harshly.

"We got to get out of here, pronto.  I'll take this little matter up
with you when I got more time.  If them lawmen run me down because of
that shooting I'll take it out on you before they knock me over.  Get
up, you sneaking bitch.  You'll pay for this the next time I put my
hands on you."

Kitty dragged herself to her feet and climbed into the saddle of the
horse he led.  Forbes spurred to the rim of the valley, still leading
her mount, and his lips tightened beneath his thick black moustache
when he saw two riders coming up the long slope.

"Let's get out of here," he cursed, and set his spurs into the flanks
of his mount.  He kept a tight hold of the girl's reins, using brute
strength to get her animal moving.  He was thin-lipped as they retraced
their steps.  He knew this country fairly well, and although he could
find a hundred places in which to hide, he knew he could not lie up
indefinitely.  He looked at the brooding girl.  She was becoming a
liability.  But he was not yet satisfied, and was determined to keep
her in tow until he was clear of the mountains.  Then she could go the
way of Hollister.  He grinned brutally.  She would have to die because
she knew too much about him.

He went plunging down a long slope and sent his mount roughly up the
opposite incline.  There was more than one way out of this trap.  The
lawmen couldn't watch every yard of the ground.  He'd get out if he had
to crawl.  He could always steal a horse later.  He smiled at the
notion of getting out afoot.  A man without a horse was a very small
target in this kind of country.

The girl made no protest at their punishing ride.  She had not spoken
since recovering from her fall.  Her mind was almost blank, submerged
in the horror of the past two days.  Just a small corner of it was
working on the thought of revenge.  Next time, she planned.

there would be no mistake.  Forbes would die for what he had done to
Ash Hollister.

She showed little sign of animation when he suddenly hauled his mount
to a halt.  Looking up, following the direction of his gaze, she saw
two men sky-lined on the ridge ahead of them, and smiled coldly.

Forbes felt a tremor of fear trickle through him.  Again he wheeled his
mount and headed in another direction.  He glanced over his shoulder.
Now only one of the riders showed on the skyline.  On his right, in the
direction from which they had come, he suddenly spotted a series of
smoke columns rising into the peerless blue sky.  God, he thought, they
were going Injun on him.  They were getting organised.  He reined in
for a moment, forgetting the silent girl at his side, and considered
the situation.  He had to do the opposite to what they expected from
him.

They went into a ravine.  Forbes held the girl's reins short so she was
compelled to ride beside him.  He looked sideways at her, and she
smiled at the hunted expression peering from his shifty eyes.  He was
realising that this wasn't such a big country.

"You haven't got one hope in hell of getting out of this," she said
suddenly, her tones full of hatred.

"These lawmen know this country as well as you.  They'll guard all the
water.  Then they'll start closing in on you.  You're done for,
killer."

"Don't sound so doggoned pleased," he grated.

"You'll get yours before I get mine.  I'm gonna put a bullet through
you, girlie, but not until I think I've had enough of you.  When I'm
done with you I'll send you along with Hollister.  I can get out of
here alone.  I could ride out singing and they wouldn't set eyes on
me."

For two hours he led her on a devious route, doubling back on his
tracks, cutting off or veering left or right.  Just before sundown he
reined in beside a cluster of rocks at the foot of a steep bluff and
slid wearily out of his saddle.  His right foot was pain filled and
swollen.  He stood balancing himself with just the toe of his right
boot touching the ground.

"Stand over there where I can see you," he growled, "and remember that
I ain't in no mood for any funny business.  I reckon I got a busted
ankle to thank you for.  Mebbe I'll return the favour and bust your
neck."

He went to work and off-saddled the two horses, knee-hobbling them so
they wouldn't stray.  He watered them sparingly from his big canteen.

"Throw down a blanket under that overhang," he commanded.

"Then open up that sack of stores.  Give me something to eat.  It'll
have to be cold food.  There's jerky in that sack.  You, too.  Fill
your belly.  It'll be a long night.  And we can't light a fire."

Forbes waited until she had unrolled the blankets, then dropped
thankfully down on them.  He gingerly examined his ankle by wriggling
the foot.  He dared not take off the boot for fear of being unable to
get it on again.  But he decided, with considerable relief, that the
ankle was only badly wrenched, not broken.

They ate cold food and washed it down with water.  Darkness was
beginning to close in, and they both shivered at the cool breeze that
sneaked through the rocks.  He watched her feed the horses with oats
poured into his hat from the small sack he had brought along.

"Now come over here and lie down," he ordered.

"I thought I'd tamed you, girlie, but you taught me otherwise today.
Well, you got a lot to learn about me.  Come on and get settled for the
night.  I want you real close.  You ain't sneaking out before sunup, or
getting the chance to ventilate me.  And I'll tell you this.  You try
anything again and I'll choke the life out of you real slow."

She came to the blankets, tired beyond comprehension, and lay beside
him in abject obedience.  Her turn would come, she knew, if only she
learned patience.  When he had tired of her and his grunting and
groaning finally subsided into heavy snoring, she fell asleep and was
lost to her grief until morning .. .

Next day Forbes found his ankle little better.  He made the girl stand
beside him when he got up, so that he might lean his weight upon her,
and found, after taking a few faltering steps, that he could not walk.
His ankle was swollen to twice its normal size, painfully restricted by
the unforgiving leather of his boot.  The pain was so intense that he
toyed with the idea of removing the boot, but common sense prevailed
and he left it on.  He knew he would have no chance at all if he found
himself afoot wearing only one boot.  These sharp rocks could cut a
leather boot to pieces in only a matter of "hours.  He shuddered to
think of walking barefoot.

"Start saddling up," he told Kitty.

"We can eat as we ride.  I've got to hole up now until this ankle is
better, and I know just the place.  It's got grass for the horses,
water, and wood for a fire.  We're going back to the hideout where I
shot Hollister.  Mebbe I'll do you a favour and bury Ash
decent-like."

"No," she protested.

"Not there.  Take me anywhere, but not back there."

"You'll do like I said," he shouted at her.

"Ain't you got no savvy?  Don't you understand yet that you got to do
like I say?  Or mebbe you like the way I got of teaching you!  Yeah,
that's about it.  Okay, girlie, I'll remember that for when we next
stop.  But right now we got to get moving.  Saddle up them broncs and
let's go."

Kitty kept silent through the long morning.  She had been terrorised by
Forbes for so long that now nothing seemed real or sane.  It was as if
she had always been riding a horse over this rough ground, under this
cruelly hot sun that had parched her inside and burned her face and
hands.  She was hot and dirty and ill.  Her head throbbed and her body
ached.  She kept going by will power, repeating to herself every time
she felt herself slipping from the torturous saddle that she had to
avenge Ash Hollister.

Oh, Ash, she thought, her memory tormenting her with thoughts of the
man she had loved, if only you hadn't insisted on starting afresh with
stolen money!  If only we had headed for the unknown of the far West!
He would still be alive, and with her.  She remembered his soft voice
and gentle hands, and stared at the stocky figure of Trig Forbes.
Forbes had abused and despoiled her.  He was a pig of a man.  But soon,
she knew, he would be done for, and she wouW live to gaze down into his
dead face.

They were wearily retracing their steps over rough ground that had
already nearly broken her heart.  She watched Forbes all the time,
ready to strike at him the instant he relaxed his alertness.  But
Forbes wasn't going to get caught napping again.  His eyes were
constantly roving over the skylines and along the slopes.  He knew the
lawmen had ringed him, but was convinced that his knowledge of the
country would enable him to give them the slip and pass through their
cordon to liberty.

Several times he broke the heavy silence with profane swearing that
fell like physical blows against the girl's ears.  He displayed his
great cunning by blotting their tracks and confusing their trail with
aimless riding to and fro which had a dozen different sets of tracks
ending on hard rock.  She could see the problems which would confront
the posse men when they reached the spot.  They would waste half a day
searching for the right trail of the man they sought.

The heat of midday scoured them.  Sweat trickled into Forbes' eyes from
the clustering beads on his forehead.  He felt old and weary, baked by
the merciless sun, tired by the never-ending jolting as the horse he
rode stumbled and picked its way through the burnished rocks.  His
nerves became more frayed with the passing hours.  His eyes ached with
the strain of peering into the powerful sunlight.  He began to feel
trapped, had an icy tremor between his shoulder blades, a coldness
trickling in his belly and a tightness in his chest that was choking.

The sun was reaching down for the western peaks when Forbes spotted a
movement on a slope.  He cursed as he led the girl and the pack horse
into cover.

"Get down," he commanded her, climbing stiffly out of his own saddle,
limping in favour of his ankle.  He came around his mount's head and
grasped her arm as she dismounted.

"I shan't tell you twice," he warned.

"There's fellers ahead, and they are part of the ring that's got me
trapped.  Once we get past them we're free.  So keep quiet and you'll
mebbe live to spend some of that dough I got.  If you open your mouth
when they're in earshot I'll stick the barrel of my .45 in it and
squeeze off a couple of shots.  Let that sink in, girlie.  I've got
nothing to lose.  If I have to I'll kill you.  I can always shoot my
way out of this mess.  I reckon

I'm a durned fool anyway, hanging on to you.  There's lots of women
would be more willing for less than I can give you.  And keep away from
my rifle this time.  It ain't loaded."

Forbes held the girl's arm and dragged her with him to a vantage point.
He pulled her down into a crouching position and they watched two
riders coming down a distant slope.  On the crest behind the pair sat
two more riders.

"Yeah," Forbes muttered exultantly.

"They're gonna come right down here, with those two up there covering
them.  We'll get out of this, girlie.  We can go through these rocks
and sneak by them."

He dragged her back to the horses.

"Lead your bronc," he commanded.

"Take it that way.  And don't forget what I said.  Don't act up, and
take it real slow.  I don't want no trouble.  If there is any shooting
you'll be the first one to stop a slug.  Now get moving."

Kitty led off.  She wasn't afraid of Forbes any more.  She began
leading her horse through the jumbled rocks, hoping the sound of their
clattering hooves would be heard by the patrolling lawmen.  She kept to
the very fringe of the rocks until Forbes called to her to angle to the
left.  As she stumbled forward, Kitty toyed with the idea of running
from the outlaw.  But she wanted to see Forbes die.  She decided to
stick with him.

"Hold it there," Forbes called after they had covered half a mile.

"Drop your reins and come with me."  He held her wrist again, taking no
chances as he wended his way to the outskirts of the rocks to check the
positions of the lawmen.  He grinned crookedly when he saw two riders
going by some one hundred and fifty yards away.  They were riding
alertly and checking for sign.  Well, they'd find plenty to keep them
occupied when they came upon the tracks he'd fixed for them.  He looked
for the other two, and saw them still sitting their mounts on the
crest.

For a moment he studied the ground, looking for the best route' to take
out of the trap.  It would be a close thing, with those two up on the
ridge.  He waited until the pair in the valley had moved further away.
Then he turned to the girl.

"On your way, girlie, and take it easy.  Them coyotes up there are
watching the whole valley for movement.  But with a bit of luck we'll
sneak past them.  You wait till we get out of this.  I'll do you all
right; good clothes and plenty of money.  Me and you will get along
fine.  Come on, let's get moving."

Kitty was almost out on her feet.  The heat that was packed among the
rocks was almost overpowering.  Her head ached and dizziness whirled
her senses.  Her nerves were stretched to breaking point, and she had
to fight the urge to break down and scream.  She staggered back to her
horse and forced herself to go on.

Forbes felt his spirits rise as they widened the gap between themselves
and the two lawmen going down the valley.  The first stirrings of
triumph fluttered in his crooked breast.  He was going to make it. He'd
get clear of the mountains, then hightail it out of the country. They
wouldn't catch him now.

When Kitty suddenly halted, Forbes dropped his reins and sprang to her
side, fearing some trick.  But the girl was standing quite still.  They
had come to the end of the covering rocks.  Ahead of them was a flat
stretch of bare rock that lay like an invisible barrier between them
and the safety of more rock four hundred yards away.

Forbes gazed at the open ground and cursed slowly and vehemently.  He
moved around the rocks and stared at the two riders sitting their
mounts on the ridge.

"Curse it," he cried.

"The last few yards.  We'll have to chance it.  Them two going down the
valley will be busy for hours sorting out that mess of tracks I left
them.  Why don't that other pair get off that high ground?  I wonder if
we can ride casually across this open bit.  Them two up there couldn't
hit us with their guns.  The worst they could do is fire shots to
attract the others and warn 'em we've left cover.  But I figger we
would be lost in that rough country before they got organised.  The
trouble is they'd know the direction we're headed.  We'll hang fire
here for a bit, girlie, and see if those two will move down off the
ridge.  It will be worth the time if it means getting across here
without being seen."

They sat down in the shade of a rock and waited while the slow minutes
dragged by.  Forbes looked at the sun in the wide sky.  Time was
passing all too quickly.  He wondered if he should wait for darkness.
Then he decided that he ought to push on before the two lawmen down in
the valley unravelled the tracks he had left for them.  He would make a
break for it, he suddenly decided, and run all night.  By dawn he
should be well clear of the posses.

"Get into your saddle, girlie," he commanded.

"We're going through now.  I've had enough of this sitting around.  My
luck's in and I'm going to ride it high, wide and handsome.  Let's be
making tracks."

He watched her carefully, but she had no intention of giving trouble.
They mounted and rode out into the open.  Forbes kept an eye on the
ridge, watching for the first sign that they had been seen.  They
crossed the open ground, and Forbes began to laugh.  The two men high
above them still sat as if they were statues.  Forbes chuckled.  His
luck was in.  He turned his head away from the ridge, knowing that a
shot would tell all the mountains that they had been seen.  But the
great silence continued to press in around them, and with a sigh of
relief the outlaw followed the girl into more cover.  They had made it
... Chapter Ten

HOLLISTER WAS STUNNED by the turn of events.  He stood with a deputy
watching him, his hands cuffed in front of him.  One of the lawmen
searched the dead Palmer, and his effects were pocketed by the deputy
sheriff.  Hollister braced himself, trying to throw off the numbing
shock that gripped him.  His head was heavy with pain, and his pulses
throbbed dully.

"I'm Deputy John Pitchers," the lawman said, straightening from
Palmer's body.

"These pards of mine are part-time lawmen.  That's Joe Powell and Lem
Allen.  I know you're Ash Hollister, and I'll tell you this.  We'll get
along just fine if you'll play ball.  This is a helluva country to be
riding through.  If you behave yourself you'll be okay.  We ain't going
back to Pinker's Post until we've got the rest of your gang.  Now you
can make it easy for all of us.  Give us the lowdown so we can finish
the job and get to hell out of here.  We got orders to stay in the
mountains until all you owl-hoots are in the net.  How many more men
you got running loose?  Where are they likely to hide?"

"There's only one left," Hollister said woodenly, his face taut.  He
lifted his hands to his head and the cuffs on his wrists clinked
metallically.

"His name is Trig Forbes.  He's got a woman with him, and there's no
telling what he's done to her these past two days.  I was hunting him
when you caught me."

"What did you fall out over?"  Pitchers eyed Hoi-lister keenly.

"You fought over the woman?"

"I was going to marry her.  But Forbes took a fancy to her.  He shot me
and left me for dead.  I'm as anxious as you to see him caught."

"Good.  Then tell me where he's likely to hole up."

"There are a hundred places.  But I'll take you to the most likely
ones; you'll have to be careful how you take him.  He may hurt the girl
if he's cornered."

"Who is she?"

"Her name is Kitty Adams.  He took her off against her will."

"We'll get him.  You just show us these rat holes of yours and we'll
scare him out.  Let's get mounted and riding."

Hollister had to haul himself into his saddle.  He glanced down at the
lifeless body of Frank Palmer, looking at the sheathed knives still on
the dead outlaw's belt, and it was hard for him to grasp the fact that
Palmer was dead and that he was a prisoner of the law.  He shook his
head sadly.  Frank Palmer, in the last two days of his life, had
surprised Hollister with his compassion.  He'd always imagined the
knife man to be devoid of human instincts.

"There are about two hundred lawmen searching these mountains,"
Pitchers said as they rode slowly over the hostile ground.

"We've been planning a big drive after you fellers for some time but
never got around to starting it.  Your raid on the train sparked this
off."

"I had nothing to do with that," Hollister said.

"John Clanton took Frank Palmer and Burt Nixon on that job.  I didn't
know anything about it until it was all over.  I was resting up with
this wound I got at Sutler's Crossing."

"You admitting to that raid?"  Pitchers asked.

"Yeah.  Why not?  You've got me cold.  I was all washed up anyway.
Ain't that a laugh?  I kept clear of the law for fifteen years, and as
soon as I plan on going straight I find myself in irons."

"You had a good run," Pitchers said.

"That's the trouble with your kind, Hollister.  You never know when to
get out.  You always leave it too late.  Now what have you got to look
forward to?  If they don't hang you, you'll go to jail for mebbe twenty
years.  Whatever did you get out of lawlessness?  Could you ever spend
any of your loot with an easy mind?  Did you ever get the chance to
settle down like an honest man?"  He laughed grimly.

"You've just wasted your life."

"That's true," Hollister said.  He had known only distrust and fear. It
had been a hard life with little comfort and no peace.  That was the
way of it.  That was how outlaws paid for breaking the laws of God and
Man.  They got money the easy way, and sometimes never lived to spend
it.  They started out like men, but before they died all they succeeded
in doing was to debase themselves to the level of predatory animals.
They stole and killed, forgot the values of life, and lost respect and
trust.  They thought they were brave and clever, far above the average
honest man who laboured for little reward in this harsh land.  But they
died with their faces in the dust, and the honest man knew love and
hope and peace.

"What happened to all the dough you stole from Sutler's Crossing?"
Pitchers asked, breaking in on Hollister's thoughts.

"Forbes has it.  He's got the girl, and one hundred thousand bucks.  I
don't care what happens to the money, but I want to see that girl
safely out of his clutches.  If we get him cornered, let me go in and
take him."

"You're a wanted outlaw under proper arrest," Pitchers said a trifle
pompously.

"I ain't taking those irons off you until we're standing in the jail in
Pinker's Post."

Hollister closed his aching eyes to the glare of the blinding sun.  He
was about all in.  Pangs of hunger were rife in his stomach.  He felt
sickness deep inside him.  Kitty, he thought forlornly, and conjured up
a picture of her face.  Then the knowledge struck him that she believed
him dead, and his heart ached for her, knowing that she would be
feeling great pain over his loss.

He wished he had taken heed of her warning against using stolen money
for their fresh start.  Of course it would have been difficult for the
two of them to begin anew from scratch.  But honest men knew of no
other way, and it was better in the long run.  He should have listened
to her wisdom, which had been founded upon honesty, and cursed himself
a thousand times for being an utter fool.

"You'll have a job to run Forbes to earth," he volunteered.

"I never met a hombre who could blot a trail like him.  He'll have you
running up and down the sides of mountains before you're through."

"You know him," Pitchers growled.

"If you want him as badly as you say you do then you'll be able to take
his tricks in your stride and still come up with him."

"I'll do my best," Hollister promised harshly.

"But I could do with a rest right now, and some food."

"All right, we'll take ten," Pitchers decided.

"Let me take a look at that wound of yours.  You ain't looking any too
fierce right now.  Joe, get some grub outa those bags.  I could do with
a bite myself.  And bring that bottle of whisky.  This feller looks
like he could do with a gulp of the hard stuff."

"I never could understand you," said the young lawman called Joe
Powell.

"I ain't got no time for outlaws and killers.  You treat them like they
was human.  Why, some of the things these fellers do would shame an
animal.  There ain't no sense feeding this jasper good whisky if you're
planning on stringing him up the week after next."

"Cut the lip and do like I say, Joe," Pitchers ordered.  He turned to
Hollister, who had slumped on to a rock.

"I'll take them irons off.  It'll be easier for you.  But don't try
anything like running.  Lem has got his shotgun in his hands, and I
ain't got to tell you how he can handle that thing.  You already seen a
sample of his handiwork."

Hollister rubbed his wrists thankfully.  A strong pull at the whisky
bottle straightened his shoulders a little, and solid food in his belly
staved off the ever-encroaching weakness grappling to overpower him.

Mounted again, he felt much better, and began to look around with
interest at his surroundings.  They were following some of the
intermittent tracks that Forbes could not conceal, and Hollister judged
that they must be all of twenty-four hours old.

"You've got an advantage over Forbes," Hollister told the lawman.

"He knows this country pretty good, but I know it better.  I also know
how Forbes thinks.  That's where we score.  He doesn't know I'm on his
trail.  By the looks of it I'd say he's heading back to the old
hideout?  figuring that having searched it once the law won't go back
again."

"Well, that's where he'll make a big mistake," Pitchers said.

"We're watching all known hideouts.  We ain't giving up this time.  The
end of the hunt will see the end of the Hollister gang in these parts.
We're gonna clean up this part of the country once for all."

They spent a cold night in some rocks, and went on again next day.
Hollister had resigned himself to captivity, and was frank in his
disclosures to the lawmen.  Whatever happened, he knew that he was
finished with his life of crime.  He'd even begun to think like an
honest man.

They made slow progress, for Pitchers, while remaining to guard
Hollister, sent the other two to check every likely spot where an
outlaw might hide.  The old lawman had lost his hostility towards
Hollister, but never once relaxed his vigilance.  They crossed several
ridges, always following some faint sign left by the fleeing Forbes.

"There's a hideout in that ravine," Hollister said when they reached
the spot where Forbes and the girl had spent one night after the outlaw
had shot down the three posse men who had chased him.

Pitchers sent in his two men.  Hollister dismounted and squatted in the
shade of a rock.  The deputy gave him the makings and they both smoked.
But Pitchers kept well out of arm's length.  They sat listening for the
shots which would indicate that Forbes had been located.  But nothing
happened to break the heavy silence.  Thirty minutes later the two
posse men came riding out of the ravine.

"Someone spent a night there recently," one of them reported.

"The sign is all of a day old."

"Then let's get on," said Pitchers, and they proceeded.

It was in the middle of the afternoon when they heard very faintly the
sounds of shots those fired by Kitty at Forbes.  It was hard for them
to judge the direction from which they came, but they all agreed that
the trail they were following led in the right quarter.  Shortly after,
they espied the smoke signals which the posse men had been ordered to
send up if the fugitives were spotted.  It would be a signal for the
circle of lawmen to close in on the spot and spring the trap.

"That smoke is more than a dozen miles away," Pitchers decided.

"We ain't gonna come up with them today.  I don't know how long it's
going to take us, but if we don't soon set eyes on them we're gonna get
mighty short of grub."

"Want me to ride Hollister into jail and pick up some more supplies?"
asked Joe Powell.

"Nope.  Hollister can help us.  He knows this country better than we
do.  We'll have to tighten our belts, boys."

That night was passed in much the same way as the previous, and in the
morning, as the sun came up, they stirred and awakened.  Breakfast was
a frugal affair, but there was nothing wrong with the coffee.
Afterwards they saddled up and commenced to ride.

Hollister was relieved to find that his head had ceased to ache, and he
felt almost back to normal.  His skull was still sore, and the wound
made its presence felt, but the terrific, deep-rooted agony of the past
two days was gone.

They found Forbes' trail, but Hollister was prepared to find that the
outlaw had doubled back.  He knew Forbes intirgately, and was aware
that the man had his share of natural cunning.  He thought it would be
largely a matter of luck if they did come up with him at all.

Hollister wondered about Kitty.  She'd been in Forbes' clutches now for
three days, and he groaned almost aloud as his imagination fed him
pictures of the way he knew Forbes would treat the girl.  He prayed
that the posse would come up with the killer, and that somehow he would
be able to even his score with the outlaw.

The daylight was three-quarters gone when they topped a ridge and
stared down into a wide valley.  For a moment they all sat still and
looked for a movement.  But nothing stirred in the shadows of the bleak
rock formations.

"Joe, you and Lem had better ride down that valley and take a look see.
He must be in this vicinity.  We can't be far away from where we saw
the smoke yesterday.  I'll sit up here with Hollister and keep watch.
Go down there as far as you can.  If you see any sign, fire three
spaced shots and I'll come riding.  Get back here before sundown."

The two men set their mounts down the loose shale slope and rode into
the valley.  Hollister watched their progress.  He had carefully
studied the valley without picking out anything which had aroused his
suspicion.

"We've got a long wait," he remarked to Pitchers.

"It'll take more than three hours for them to ride down the valley and
back."

"What you fretting for?"  the veteran lawman asked.

"That's all you got left, son.  Plenty of time.  You'd better make the
most of all this.  When you get to jail you're gonna be inside a mighty
long time."

Hollister thought about that.  He studied the great piles of rock on
the other side of the valley.  He had no prospects now.  The future
seemed as harsh and bleak as this country.  He wondered how Kitty would
spend her years after Forbes had been caught.  He reminded himself that
the girl still thought that he was dead.

Hollister sat on the left of Pitchers, and the two posse men down in
the valley were lost now in the rocks far to Hollister's left.
Hollister could not shake off the feeling that Forbes would try
something tricky like doubling back on his already mystifying tracks.
He continually scanned the jumble of rocks down in the valley, and
wondered exactly where in all this desolation Forbes was hiding with
the girl.

Pitchers had unconsciously ridden in closer to Hollister, and they were
silent as they watched the valley.

"We haven't got much hope of finding them," Hollister remarked.

"Just take a look at the valley for instance.  What's to stop Forbes
from hiding out until we have gone by, then hightailing it back the way
he's come?"

"We'll get him," the deputy sheriff growled.

"Whatever way he runs, he'll bump into one of our posses."

Hollister glanced covertly at the lawman.  He looked back down into the
valley where the other two lawmen had vanished.  It had taken them
twenty minutes to ride down there, and that meant only one man stood
between Hollister and freedom.  He breathed a little faster as he
considered the possibilities.  He didn't want to spend twenty years in
jail, if they did not hang him,

but he did want to come up with Forbes, and knew he had more chance of
doing so if he stayed with the lawmen.

He glanced casually in the opposite direction, across Pitchers, who was
watching the spot where his two deputies had disappeared, and started
in surprise.  Two riders were casually moving across open ground some
four hundred yards away.  The pair were only a few strides from
cover.

"Over there," Hollister said excitedly.

"Quick!  See them?  Two riders.  Forbes and the girl."

Pitchers turned his head away from Hollister to follow the line of the
gang leader's pointing finger.  He caught a glimpse of the two riders
just as they were disappearing into some rocks.

"By God, they are doubling back," the deputy shouted.

Hollister leaned sideways in his saddle.  He swung his big right fist
in a vicious chopping blow that caught the deputy behind the left ear.
Pitchers cried out in shock.  He swayed in the saddle.  Hollister
struck again, aiming for the same spot.  The smack of knuckles against
bone sounded dully in the oppressive silence.  Pitchers fell out of his
saddle.

Hollister sprang down from his own mount and skirted Pitchers' nervous
bronc.  The deputy was getting to his feet, shaking his head, reaching
groggily for his gun.  Hollister jumped him, but the deputy faded
before the attack, dropping to the ground and lunging up with his feet
as Hollister bored in.  His heavy riding boots took Hollister in the
stomach and hurled him on to his back.

Pitchers was cursing.  He fumbled with his gun.  But he was an old man,
and Hollister's first blows had dazed him.  He got his Colt clear of
leather, but dropped it.  Hollister came back again, desperate now,
afraid that a shot would recall the other two.  He hit the deputy with
his shoulder, bowling him over before he could get his finger to the
trigger of the gun.  The impact threw talons of pain into Hollister's
head.  He staggered, holding one hand to his throbbing skull.

The deputy was tough.  He bounded up off the hard rock and came at
Hollister with outstretched hands.  Hollister met him with a straight
left punch that rocked the old man.  Under ordinary circumstances,
Hollister knew, he would have found no difficulty in dealing with
Pitchers.  But the wound he had sustained at Sutler's Crossing, and the
hole in his head from Forbes' bullet had taken its toll of his
strength.  He didn't want to hurt the lawman, for Pitchers had treated
him decently during the last two days.  But he had to get away.  Now he
knew where Forbes was he could practically read the outlaw's mind, and
he wanted to come up with the double-crosser and kill him.

Pitchers grappled with him, exerting surprising strength for one so
much smaller than Hollister.  The deputy's head came crashing forward.
Hollister cursed and tried to move his already battered head out of the
way, but the lawman's head smashed against his mouth.  Hollister felt
his jaw crack.  His lips were crushed against his teeth.  Pain flashed
through him.  His lips split and he tasted blood.  His teeth snapped
together and his whole jaw burned with agony.

Hollister held on.  His senses spun.  He heard a roaring sound in his
ears.  His temples throbbed madly.  Pitchers lifted his head, and
Hollister threw a desperate punch which connected against the lawman's
fleshy jaw.  He threw another immediately, and Pitchers buckled at the
knees.

They continued striving for the advantage, struggling to keep their
balance on the treacherous rock.  Hollister spat blood.  His probing
tongue told him that several of his teeth were loosened.  But the agony
in his head was so great that he could feel nothing in his jaw.

Pitchers lost his footing.  He fell heavily and Hollister went with
him.  The gang leader hammered the lawman with his left fist.  Pitchers
tried to squirm from underneath him, but Hollister's greater weight
pinned him effectively.  Then Hollister raised himself slightly and
struck again with his right fist.  Three more punches he threw in rapid
succession, and Pitchers collapsed.  He sagged and his head lolled on
his neck.

Hollister sat up, gasping.  He stared at the prone deputy, then got
unsteadily to his feet.  He bent and scooped up Pitchers' gun, checking
the weapon.  Then he looked around for sign of the other lawmen.  They
were nowhere in sight.  Hollister let his breath go in a long sigh of
relief.  He was at liberty again.

Crossing to the horses, Hollister took his gunbelt off the pack animal
and strapped it on, thrusting the deputy's gun into the empty holster.
He found the handcuffs in a saddle bag and went back to the still
unconscious Pitchers, snapping them on the lawman's wrists.  Then he
prepared to ride out.  He transferred some of the supplies into a sack
and rolled them in his blanket, which he tied behind his saddle.  He
took Pitchers' rifle and slid it into his boot on the right of his
saddle.  Then he mounted and turned the head of his horse to the
valley.  He left the deputy stirring on the ground and sent his mount
in a scrambling run down the shale slope.  At the bottom he pointed the
head of the animal at the spot where Forbes and Kitty had vanished into
the rocks four hundred yards away.

Chapter Eleven

Now FORBES sacrificed guile for speed.  He was on the run and would
keep going until he was in the clear or dead.  He chuckled.  If his
figuring was correct then he had slipped through the thin cordon, and
would be out of the country before the wondering bands of lawmen could
get together and discover the fact.  He grinned at the girl every time
he caught her eye.  Now he'd show her a thing or two.  Just let her
wait until he started spending!

Whenever Kitty tried to lag behind he lashed her with vile oaths and
threats.  He kept the girl travelling slightly ahead, shouting
directions as they progressed, and they took a completely different
trail back through the mountains.

Kitty marvelled at his intimate knowledge of these seemingly
featureless peaks and hills.  She was hopelessly lost, bemused by the
many detours Forbes had made.  Sometimes the sun appeared on her left
hand and sometimes on her right.  They rode into a narrow ravine with
steep overhanging sides with the sun at their backs.  When they emerged
hours later the sun was on her left and very low down on the horizon.

"We're gonna make camp very soon," Forbes told her when they reined in
to give their mounts a breather.

"There's another one of Ash's hideouts only a couple of miles from
here.  No one could possibly find it, least of all these pumpkin-headed
lawmen.  We'll be okay there, girlie.  It'll be our last night together
in this country.  By this time tomorrow we'll have rangeland under our
hooves again.  We'll get cleaned up and buy some new duds.  Then we'll
board the rattler and head East.  We'll have us some good times,
girlie."

Kitty looked down at her dirty, torn clothing.  She was covered in
dust, could feel it caked on her skin and gritty in her hair.  She
hadn't washed for days, and knew she must present a sorry spectacle to
his hard eyes.  His conversation barely registered in her shocked mind.
But she knew one thing.  Trig Forbes would not leave this country
alive.  He had killed Ash here, and would remain himself until his
bones turned to the very dust that was smeared upon her.  Her heart
cried out for Ashley Hollister, and she could not yet grasp the tragic
fact that he was dead.

While Forbes slept that night she lay planning his death.  If only he
would leave his gun close to hand!  She imagined the thrill of
thrusting the heavy muzzle into his belly and squeezing off the five
shots in the gun.  But Forbes had learned his lesson.  He kept his
weapons out of reach, and she was anchored down in the blankets they
shared by his outflung arm.

At dawn they continued.  Forbes was humming to himself now.  They were
following paths that no posse dreamed could exist.  He made no attempt
to cover their tracks where the ground was soft enough to show them.
All around were sheer rock walls.  The sky seemed far above.  Sometimes
they rode in complete shadow over canyon floors too deep for the sun to
reach.  Reality seemed far away.  It was as if there was nothing else
in this world but shale slopes to be climbed or precipices to be
skirted.  The hours were long and monotonous.

By midday they were back on a part of the trail that seemed familiar to
Kitty's eyes, and when they entered a cluster of rocks she saw a pool
of stagnant water and realised that this was the place where Forbes had
buried three-quarters of the loot.

"I changed my mind about leaving the dough here," he said drily.

"Once I get out of this hell-hole I don't want to come back for
anything.  Halloo, what's that?"  He pointed towards the pool.

"Looks like a body."

His gun flashed into his hand as he spoke, and his eyes narrowed
suspiciously.  He slid down from his saddle.

"Come with me," he snapped at the girl.

"I don't want you behind me."

She joined him reluctantly.  Together they approached the sprawled
body, and Kitty averted her eyes when they reached all that remained of
Frank Palmer.

"So he didn't go all the way to Tinker's Post," Forbes mused aloud.

"Well, what do you know about that?  I didn't think old Frank had the
savvy to see through my little deception.  He's been killed by a
shotgun."  Forbes shook his head.

"He must have run into those posse-men we saw.  Well, that makes me the
sole survivor of the Hollister gang.  I got the girl and all the
dough."  He turned to Kitty.

"Bring the horses over.  I'll dig up the money.  Let's get moving.  I
don't want to get caught now we're nearly out of it.  Hurry it up,
girlie."

He quickly unearthed the bags of money he had buried and slung them
across the pack horse.  They mounted and went on quickly.  Forbes was
suddenly apprehensive, and kept throwing glances at their back trail.
To him it seemed all too good to be true.  He had the money, a woman,
and had succeeded in getting out of the trap the lawmen had set.

"We're gonna rest up in that cave where I killed Hollister," he told
Kitty when they had left the water hole far behind.

"We'll make it by tonight.  Then tomorrow we're quitting this country.
It won't be before time either.  My nerves are getting frayed.  My eyes
are longing for the sight of grass again."

Kitty did not reply.  She had spotted movement ahead, where a heap of
great boulders were piled untidily at the foot of a bluff.  She glanced
away from the spot in case Forbes' attention was attracted to it by her
interest.  They rode nearer the place and her pulses quickened.  It
could only be lawmen out here.  She smiled inwardly, and hoped that
Forbes would try to make a fight of it so she could see him ruthlessly
shot down.

But Forbes turned aside before they came up to the spot, and they began
to climb a shale slope.  It took all of Kitty's skill and concentration
to negotiate the incline, and every step of the way was a nightmare for
her.  She fully expected a volley of shots to blast at them, but
nothing disturbed the hot stillness.  When they reached the top of the
slope she managed a quick glance down at the spot, but saw nothing that
indicated the presence of strangers in the instant before Forbes
hurried her off the skyline.

Later they began traversing the narrow ledge that wound around the side
of a mountain.  It was here, she remembered, that Hollister had several
times nearly swayed out of his saddle when they made the first journey
from one hideout to the other.  She let her thoughts wander to the man
she had loved, and lost all track of time and purpose.

Forbes shouted at her, and his harsh voice dragged her back to.  the
nightmarish present.  They had reached the end of the ledge and were on
the last lap to the cave where Hollister's body would still be lying.

"Hold up there," Forbes was yelling.

"You asleep?  I bin calling you a dozen times."

Kitty rode on to the wide shelf and turned to look back.  Forbes was
still on the ledge, several yards from the end, and the outlaw was
trying to calm the pack horse he was leading.  The animal was rearing
and stamping on the narrow ledge.  Kitty sat her horse and watched.

Forbes was blaspheming the horse, and his own mount was becoming
restive.  The girl climbed stiffly from her saddle and led her horse
away from the sheer drop.  She was utterly weary and spent.  She walked
to some boulders for the shade, and her heart jumped sickeningly when a
man stepped out of their cover.  Her breath caught in her throat.  A
roaring sound thundered in her head.  The whole world seemed to tilt as
her senses spun.  The surrounding peaks seemed to sway in and topple
upon her.

"Oh!"  she cried, and fell into a dead faint .. .

Hollister did not spare himself to get within striking distance of
Forbes.  He was only some thirty minutes behind the outlaw when he left
Pitchers, the deputy, manacled with his own cuffs.  Following Forbes'
sign was easy, and Hollister knew, by the direction Forbes was taking,
where the outlaw was heading and what his plans were.  Hollister
smiled.  Forbes was doing exactly what he himself would have done under
similar circumstances.

When Forbes' tracks entered the three-quarter horseshoe canyon
Hollister left the trail and cut across broken ground.  At times he was
travelling not faster than a walking pace, but he knew he was on a
shorter route than Forbes, and he kept going until darkness forced him
to halt.  He supped on dough cake and cold bacon, later rolling himself
in his blanket with his saddle for a pillow.  He slept fitfully until
just after dawn.

In the morning he found that his horse was lame, and a curse broke from
his stiff lips.  He prised a small piece of sharp rock out of the
animal's near-side front hoof, and led the limping beast for a long
distance.  Now he had no hope of reaching the spot where Frank Palmer
died before Forbes got there.

He wanted to get ahead of the fleeing outlaw because there was no way
of knowing what Forbes would do to the girl if he realised that he was
being trailed.

When he stood looking again at the carcase of Frank Palmer he had
already seen sign that told him Forbes and Kitty were still ahead.  He
saw the cavity where the money had been buried, and swung back into his
saddle with hard-set face and stormy, brooding eyes.

Twenty minutes on Forbes' trail gave him an inkling of the man's
probable destination, and again Hollister, sparing his mount as much as
possible, left Forbes' trail and went unerringly across country.  Four
hours later he stepped out of his saddle and ground hitched the tired
animal far back in the rocks clustered at the foot of a bluff.  He drew
his rifle and settled down to wait, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep
and the hard riding.

The close heat from the broiling sun seemed to add to the great
weariness that held him.

He had not long to wait.  Two riders came into sight, and his heart
lurched when he recognised the nearer of the two as Kitty.  He cocked
the rifle.  He would take no chances.  A bullet through the brain was
the quickest and simplest way of killing Forbes.  It would be a speedy
end for the callous outlaw, but Kitty's safety was the only thing that
counted.  If Forbes saw Hollister and used Kitty as a shield he could
compel the gang leader to surrender, and Hollister knew what that would
mean; another bullet from Forbes' gun, and next time the outlaw would
check his shooting.

But Forbes was having a great run of luck.  Before he drew within
accurate rifle range of Hollister he took to the shale slope and, by
chance, rode on the further side of the girl.  Hollister watched them
ascend the climb and disappear.  For long moments he sat considering
his next actions.  In his mind he travelled the route Forbes was
following.  He remembered the ledge, and grinned tightly.  Forbes was
clever and had a good knowledge of this country.  But Hollister had not
been running loose in these mountains for a dozen years without picking
up considerably more knowledge of this rocky region.  He had but one
chance of reaching the perfect ambush position before Forbes rode by
it, and he had to take that chance even if it meant killing his horse
in the attempt.

He fetched his horse and set off at a dangerously fast pace along the
foot of the bluff.  Long ago he had searched for an alternative route
to the hideout where Forbes had shot him, and had come upon a scalable
path to the wide shelf where the ledge terminated.  It was a desperate
gamble now.  But it was the only chance he had of getting Kitty out of
Forbes' clutches.  If his mount could hold out on the pace to the foot
of the sheer wall, Hollister would climb the hazardous path and hope to
reach the spot in time to catch Forbes as he stepped off the ledge.

Hollister pushed his horse to the limits of its endurance.  Whenever
the straining beast stumbled, Hollister kept it on its feet by sheer
strength and horsemanship.  He coaxed it up almost impossible inclines
and sent it fearlessly at slopes so steep the horse had almost to slide
down on its haunches to keep its balance.

Judging the distance in his mind, and remembering the task that lay
before him when the horse could go no further, Hollister felt despair
flood into him.  Dare he hope to arrive in time?  Could he possibly end
this four-day nightmare by killing Forbes and getting Kitty back?

His mount faltered on a slope.  The beast was nearly done.  Hollister
felt a great weakness filter into his veins.  He tried to throw it off,
to summon up what reserves of strength he could command.  Finally he
reined in at the foot of an almost unscalable rock wall and tottered
from his saddle.  The horse fell to its knees, snorting and gasping,
then rolled on to its side, neck outstretched and flanks heaving.  It
was dying, he knew, but dared not fire the single shot needed to end
the beast's suffering.  He checked his Colt and turned his back upon
the animal.  The hoarse rasping of its tortured breathing stayed in his
ears as he started his ascent.

Soon he was gasping for breath.  His shirt was sweat-sodden upon his
back.  He felt light-headed.  His legs trembled uncontrollably as he
braced them to support his weakening body while he searched for
handholds in the obdurate rock.  He fought against exhaustion,

fear and time.  The tips of his fingers were skinned and bleeding, the
knees of his pants frayed and torn by the sharp rock that was almost
too hot to touch.

He climbed the rock wall, not daring to look down or pause-for a rest,
knowing that if he stopped he could never force his muscles into action
again.  His senses had not stopped spinning from the time he had taken
the first handhold.  How long he climbed he could not judge.  He lost
track of time and forgot the purpose for this nightmarish ascent.  He
went up and up, ignoring the agony of his head and the aches in his
protesting body.

Finally he reached for yet another handhold, and his clawing fingers
met nothing but air.  He glanced upward, jerking the sweat out of his
squinted eyes.  Relief coursed through him.  He was at the top.  His
relief was so great he almost fainted.  He got an elbow over the edge
of the rim and tried to lever his body on to firm ground.  But his
strength was almost gone.  He could feel his determination seeping out
of him like sweat running from his pores.  He cursed frantically and
tried to find another foothold.

His left arm was turning numb, the elbow rubbing raw on the hot rock as
he let his weight hang upon it.  He shifted his right hand inch by inch
until his chin rested upon it, the fingers splayed out to grip the very
edge of the rim.  He tried forcing his chin down upon his hand, and did
move upwards a fraction.  But he could go no further.  He began to toy
with the idea of giving up.  The strain was too much.  All he had to do
was release his tenacious hold and he would go plummeting down into
oblivion.  But he thought of Kitty, and the evil Forbes, and took a
deep breath.

He could see the ledge from his position, with his head jutting above
the rim of the precipice, and it was deserted.  He wondered if he was
too late.  It would be too bad for him if Forbes came along now and
found him in this helpless position.

Minutes passed and he clung to his precarious holds.  He had to force
himself not to think of the sheer drop at his back, for when he let his
mind play upon it he felt his strength draining away and blackness
creeping in upon him.  He concentrated on thinking about Kitty, and how
he would take her out of the mountains after he had killed Forbes.

For ten minutes he hung on to the edge with his hands and toes.  His
breathing slowly returned to normal and his heart resumed its steady
thumping.  He felt some of his strength coming back, and began attuning
his mind to the great effort he would have to make before he could
stand once more on firm ground.

Twice he felt that he was ready to make his bid, but his tired brain
would not make the necessary order for his muscles.  There was hardly a
flicker of life in his sagging body.  His elbow slipped a little, and
panic clawed up into his mind.  It was then his despairing eyes caught
a movement a long way down the ledge, and he saw two riders coming
slowly towards him.  He almost cried aloud when he recognised Kitty.

With a terrific upsurge of his last strength he tried to climb over the
rim.  He managed to get his right elbow on firm ground, and levered
upwards, his shoulder muscles cracking under the strain, his feet
threshing against the rock wall in a blind attempt to find a foothold.
He closed his eyes.  His arms trembled with the effort, and he cried
out in panic as he felt his strength fading.  Then he got his chest
over the edge and thrust out his chin in an attempt to counter balance
his body and ease the terrific strain on his arms.  Another desperate
heave upwards brought his stomach against the sharp rock.  He flattened
his upper body to the ground and squirmed forward like a stalking
Indian.  He felt his knees skin on hot rock, but did not care."  He
went limp upon his face and lay as dead with only his feet sticking out
over the edge of the drop.

Hollister gasped for breath.  He forced himself to hands and knees, the
sharp pangs of agony bringing his blurred senses back into focus.  He
crawled away from the drop, then rolled into the shade of a boulder.
His whole body coursed fire.  He pushed himself into a sitting position
with his back against the rock, and pressed his sweating face into his
up drawn bloodied knees.

The sound of steel shod hooves on rock roused him to full alertness. He
took a deep breath and staggered to his feet.  Swaying, he lifted the
Colt from his holster, wincing at the pain that spread through his raw
fingertips when he touched the hot butt.  He checked the gun and held
the weapon loosely in his right hand.  He moved around the rock until
he could see the spot where the ledge opened out into the shelf upon
which he stood.

Kitty rode first into view.  Hollister grinned weakly.  But his crooked
smile vanished into a frown when he heard Forbes yelling raucously at
the girl.  If that was a sample of what Kitty had endured for the past
four days then Forbes had a lot to answer for.  He watched the girl
dismount, and his heart gladdened when she began walking towards the
rock where he stood.

"Keep coming," he breathed.  All he wanted was to get between the girl
and Forbes.  He holstered the gun.

twice easing it in leather.  When Kitty was only a couple of paces from
him, Hollister stepped out and confronted her.  She was in as dirty and
dishevelled a state as he, and he saw her look up sharply as she caught
his movement.  Her eyes widened in disbelief.  Her face blanched as she
gasped.  Then she sighed and crumpled into unconsciousness.

Hollister stepped over her, his eyes fixed upon the ledge.  Forbes was
still fighting to calm his spooked pack horse, his voice rough with
fear and impatience.  The ledge was too narrow for stamping around.
Hollister went forward slowly, and halted when he could see Forbes.

The outlaw was twisted in his saddle, looking back at his lead horse,
cursing the animal.  He was only a dozen steps from the safety of the
shelf.  Forbes finally shortened the rope by which he was leading the
animal, and turned to ride off the ledge.  It was then he saw the
forbidding figure of Hollister barring the path.

A multitude of fleeting expressions crossed Forbes' expansive face. His
eyes bulged with disbelief.  He pulled up his horse with a great jerk,
dropping the lead rope.  His jaw gaped.

"It's me all right, Trig," Hollister grated.

"I guess you're a mite surprised, and that's putting it mildly.  Just
take it easy and get your nerve back.  Then pull your gun.  It'll be an
even break this time.  You can make your play when you're ready.  I'm
waiting on you."

Forbes gulped.  He made a visible effort to steel his shaken nerves,
but sight of the tattered figure, the deathly pale face and blazing
eyes of the man he had thought dead, was too much for his already
overtaxed mind

"Ash," he gasped, and could say no more.  He sat his uneasy mount and
gazed in open-mouthed horror.

"I'm waiting on you, Trig," Hollister reminded.

"No," Forbes whispered hoarsely.  He was remembering when Jie had shot
the gang boss down in the cave.  Hollister had actually drawn his Colt
in the split second it had taken Forbes to squeeze his trigger.

"There's no need to fight, Ash.  I regretted what I did to you as soon
as I'd pulled the trigger.  There's enough dough here for the both of
us."

"You didn't think so four days ago," Hollister said.

"You change your mind too easy for me.  Trig.  Fill your hand with iron
and let's get it done."

"A shot now will warn the lawmen," Forbes said desperately.

"You pull that trigger, Ash, and they'll be flocking up here like a
swarm of bees."

"They don't bother me none," Hollister said harshly.

"I can keep clear of them.  You got five seconds, Trig.  Then I'm going
to draw and gun you down.  I'll count them off for you.  One!  Two!
Three!"

Forbes was terrified.  He was still on the ledge, and feared that a
sudden crash of shots would spook his mount.  The ledge was very
narrow, hardly wide enough for two horses to pass, and it seemed to get
narrower by the second.  The sheer drop was too close for his ruffled
nerves.

"Wait, Ash," he begged.  Hollister stopped counting.

"Gimme an even break.  Let me get off this ledge."

"Come on then.  Ride slowly, and make your play when you step down out
of your saddle."  Hollister backed up slowly, his eyes centred upon the
crafty-faced Forbes.

Forbes nodded mutely.  He gigged his mount and came forward, and the
lead horse, snorting nervously.

followed behind with trailing rope.  Forbes rode slowly on to the
shelf, his relief evident.  He was still close to the edge of the drop.
Hollister waited for his move.  He was ready for anything.

Forbes suddenly uttered a hoarse curse of defiance, and swung his near
side leg out of the stirrup.  He jumped out of his saddle on to the
very brink of the drop, with his nervous horse between him and
Hollister.

Hollister threw himself flat, his gun already in his hand.  He had
expected something like this.  But Forbes was in trouble.  He had not
been able to get his injured foot out of the other stirrup as he sprang
down.  He hopped on one leg, his painful ankle now twisted acutely, and
his fingers fumbled at the stirrup in a vain attempt to release
himself.  The horse pranced nervously.  Forbes lost his balance and
went over backwards.  His gun, which he had drawn as he left his
saddle, flew out of his hand and whirled into the gorge, reflecting the
sunlight as it spun into the depths.

Forbes landed on his back, his foot still caught in the stirrup, and
his head and shoulders hung over the rim of the precipice.  He screamed
hoarsely in dire panic, and his horse jumped in fright.  Forbes felt
his boot pulling off, for all the weight of his big body was suspended
upon it.  He clawed at the rimrock, but could find no hold.  He
screeched at Hollister for help.

Ash ran forward, horror-stricken, and he grabbed at ; the horse with
the intention of leading it away from i the brink and dragging Forbes
clear.  But Forbes' foot i slid out of the boot and he plunged
head-first through ; space.  His trailing shriek echoed through the
close stillness, chilling Hollister's blood.

For a long time Hollister crouched at the rim and looked down into the
canyon, his nerves shattered by the way it had come about.  Then he
drew a shuddering breath and scrambled back from the edge.  He stood
up, reeling almost drunkenly, and put away his unfired Colt.  He
fetched the still nervous pack horse, and led both animals to where
Kitty's mount stood with trailing reins.  Then he went to Kitty, and
found the girl sitting with her back against the rock.  She stared at
him with bemused eyes.

"It's really me," he said gently, squatting beside her.  Seeing the
query in her anguished eyes, he added: "Forbes is dead.  He fell over
the edge."

She began to cry, and gave way to unrestrained sobbing.  Hollister put
an arm around her shoulder, too full of emotion to trust himself to
speech.  They sat so for many minutes.

"Don't take on so," he said at length.

"I can guess what these last days must have been for you.  But you'll
forget it in time.  Come on, we'd better get off this shelf.  We don't
want John Law to jump us now.  We'll rest up somewhere for a week, then
I'll take you out of these mountains.  I been thinking these last few
minutes.  Do you figure Wyoming as a nice place to settle?"

"I've never been there," she replied, her voice muffled by his
shoulder.

"Then that's where we'll head when we're ready to ride," he promised.

"I reckon we could find a place there where I'm not known.  Then we'll
settle down and live it out in peace."

"The money, Ash," she whispered.

"We can't use that."

"I'll take just enough to get us started," he soothed.

"We'll send the rest back."

He grunted tiredly as he helped her to mount.  She was smiling now, but
he felt near to tears, so great was his relief.  He caught the lead
horse, then mounted the animal Forbes had ridden.  The girl followed
him as he moved off the shelf, heading for some sanctuary known only to
himself.  They vanished into a jumble of rocks with only the click of
heavy hooves.  The sound lingered awhile behind them.  Then silence
pressed in and stillness reigned supreme.  Only the shadows lengthened
as the sun went down .. .

SADDLE TRAMP

CHARLES FIELD

Keno Dade rode into Kansas and decided to look up his old pard Dale
Brady, but trouble in the shape of murder was thereto greet him first.
Much against his will he was drawn into the local trouble and by saving
the life of Dale Brady's brother, Vern, he brought unwanted attention
upon himself.  Dale Brady turned up in time to foil the first of
several attacks made on Keno, but stopped lead himself and by the time
Keno had met the rancher Stuart Hayes, the flames of conflict were
blazing up.

Keno had a bitterfighton his hands but his guns only stopped their
deadly fire when the killers were at last wiped out.

ISBN 7090 1243 8