“Where’s Sinclair gone?”

To his astonishment, Cold Feet’s face brightened wonderfully.

“Oh, then you haven’t found him?  You haven’t found him?  Thank goodness!”

Sandersen studied the schoolteacher closely.  It was impossible to mistake the frankness of the latter’s face.

“By guns,” he said at last, “I see it all now.  The skunk sneaked off in the middle of the night and left you alone here to face the music?”

Jig flushed, as she exclaimed:  “That’s not true.  He’s never run away in his life.”

“Maybe not,” muttered Sandersen apprehensively.  “Maybe he’ll come back ag’in.  Maybe he’s just rode off after something and will be back.”

At once the old fear swept over him.  His apprehensive glance flickered over the rocks and trees around him—­a thousand secure hiding places.  He faced the schoolteacher again.

“Look here, Jig:  You’re charged with a murder, you see?  I can take you dead or alive; and the shot that bumped you off might bring Sinclair running to find out what’d happened, and he’d go the same way.  But will you promise to keep your mouth shut and give no warning when Sinclair heaves in sight?  Take your pick.  It don’t make no difference to me, one way or the other; but I can’t have the two of you on my hands.”

To his surprise Jig did not answer at once.

“Ain’t I made myself clear?  Speak out!”

“I won’t promise,” said Cold Feet, raising the colorless face.

“Then, by thunder, I’ll—­”

In the sudden contorting of his face she saw her death, but as she closed her eyes and waited for the report and the tear of the bullet, she heard him muttering:  “No, they’s a better way.”

A moment later her mouth was wrenched open, and a huge wadded bandanna was stuffed into it.  Sandersen pushed her back to the ground and tossed the blanket over her again.

“You ain’t much of a man, Jig, but as a bait for my trap you’ll do tolerable well.  You’re right:  Sinclair’s coming back, and when he comes, I’ll be waiting for him out of sight behind the rock.  But listen to this, Jig.  If you wrastle around and try to get that gag out of your mouth, I ain’t going to take no chances.  Whether Sinclair’s in sight or not, I’m going to drill you clean.  Now lie still and keep thinking on what I told you.  I mean it all!”

With a final scowl he left her and hurried to the rock.  It made an ideal shelter for his purposes.  On three sides, the rock made a thick and effectual parapet.  A thousand bullets might splash harmlessly against that stone; and through crevices he commanded the whole sweep of the mountainside beneath them.  The courage which had been growing in Sandersen, now reached a climax.  Below him lay the helpless body of one prize—­from a distance apparently a sound and quiet sleeper, though Sandersen could see the terrified glint of Jig’s eyes.

But he forgot that a moment later, when he saw the form of a horseman break out of covert from the trees farther down the mountain and immediately disappear again.  Sinclair?  He studied the barrel of the revolver, but the horseman appeared no more in the brightening and misty dawn.  It was only after a long pause that there issued from the trees, not Riley Sinclair, but the squat, thick form of Arizona!