"it wasn't human! Did you see? Did you see?"

"Am I blind?" asked Hal Purvis, "an' think of me walkin' up an'
bracin' that killer like he was a two-year-old kid! I figger that's
the nearest I ever come to a undeserved grave, an' I've had some close
calls! 'That last dollar wasn't good! It didn't ring true,' says he
when he finished. I never seen such nerve!"

"You're wrong as hell," said Silent, "a _woman_ can shoot at a target,
but it takes a cold _nerve_ to shoot at a man--an' this feller is
yellow all through!"

"Is he?" growled Bill Kilduff, "well, I'd hate to take him by
surprise, so's he'd forget himself. He gets as much action out of a
common six-gun as if it was a gatling. He was right about that last
dollar, too. It was pure--lead!"

"All right, Haines," said Silent. "You c'n start now any time, an'
the rest of us'll follow on the way I said. I'm leavin' last. I got a
little job to finish up with the kid."

But Haines was staring fixedly down the road.

"I'm not leaving yet," said Haines. "Look!"

He turned to one of the cowpunchers.

"Who's the girl riding up the road, pardner?"

"That calico? She's Kate Cumberland--old Joe's gal."