their horses.

"Deader'n hell," murmured Missou, as he lifted the limp body from
his horse. " But I guess we'll pack what's left back to the
little lady at the Lazy D."

The leader of the pursuers halted his men just out of range and
came forward alone, holding his right hand up in the usual signal
of peace. In appearance he was not unlike Ned Bannister. There
was the same long, slim, tiger build, with the flowing muscles
rippling easily beneath the loose shirt; the same effect of power
and dominance, the same clean, springy stride. The pose of the
head, too, even the sweep of salient jaw, bore a marked
resemblance. But similarity ceased at the expression. For instead
of frankness there lurked here that hint of the devil of strong
passion uncontrolled. He was the victim of his own moods, and in
the space of an hour one might, perhaps, read in that face cold
cunning, cruel malignity, leering ribaldry, as well as the
hard-bitten virtues of unflinching courage and implacable
purpose.

"I reckon you're near enough," suggested Mac, when the man had
approached to within a hundred feet of the tree clump.

"Y'u're drawing the dead-line," the other acknowledged,
indolently. "It won't take ten words to tell y'u what I want and
mean to have. I'm giving y'u two minutes to hand me over the body
of Ned Bannister. If y'u don't see it that way I'll come and make
a lead mine of your whole outfit."