LITMIR.BIZ

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all. There was something beyond reason that urged Chaffee headlong into certain trouble. The same unseen power that had killed Dad Satterlee also had driven the herd into the deep chasm of the Roaring Horse. Whatever different instruments might have been used for each deed, the power behind was the same. He was sure of it. Here was a chance to show resistance to that power, to break the machine-like sureness of it. And here was a chance to accept Theodorik Perrine's challenge of long standing. There would never come a better time.

      "Theodorik dead will mean a whole lot to this country right now," muttered Jim Chaffee. "Me bein' dead won't make much difference."

      Jim Chaffee in his normal workaday senses would never have crossed that first lava scarp and pressed along the tortuous path leading still lower into the labyrinth of pockets and pinnacles. He would have used entirely different methods. On this night Chaffee was another man. Anger tightened his nerves and muscles. His natural kindliness, his buoyant and easygoing spirit, his law-respecting judgment—all these were wiped out for the time. To-night he was a stalking savage. So at last he turned a bend of the narrow path, passed between sentinel mounds, and commanded a view of Theodorik Perrine's hut one hundred yards farther on. Dismounting, he led the pony a little off the trail and behind one of those mounds, let the reins fall, and stepped forward with both guns drawn.

      Once upon a time that had been the home of an early settler; inevitably the settler starved and moved away and Theodorik had assumed tenancy. Nothing could grow within a mile of the hut, but it occupied an admirably strategic location. There was only the one trail leading in through the lava, easily commanded by day, easily guarded at night. So jagged and crater-like was the land to either side of the trail that no horse could travel there, and for a man to attempt approach or departure across the needlelike surface of the lava was to invite torn flesh and clothing. The trail was the only safe way of entering. There was a rumor abroad that Perrine knew of another route behind the hut leading deeper into the volcanic wastes westward. If such a route existed he alone knew it. Very few people cared to explore the useless and forbidding section.

      A light glimmered through the hut windows, and the sparks of a fire shot up from the chimney. Chaffee crept forward foot by foot, sweeping the shadows for a possible sentry along the path. After to-night's affair Perrine would not leave himself unguarded. Yet Chaffee found nobody opposing his approach. Arriving near the house he paused, dissatisfied. He couldn't start a play unless he was certain nobody flanked him in the rimming darkness; so, turning, he began a tedious exploration of the bowl. He skirted a corral, seeing the vague bulk of the horses inside; and he dropped to his haunches, listening. In a few minutes he pressed on to the ramshackle barn and there waited until the very silence of the place oppressed him. Still not sure, he completed a second circle and at last closed on the hut. Uneasiness rode his shoulders. Why wasn't a sentry somewhere around?

      He slid to a side window of the hut and lifted his head until he commanded a partial view of the interior. Theodorik Perrine and Sleepy Slade were bent over a table, playing cards. Three of the gang sat around the stove. That made five. One man oiled his revolver in a corner. Six. Leaving three to be accounted for, and he couldn't see those corners of the place in which the bunks were built. Ducking, he passed to the other side of the window and looked again. Two men were rolled in their blankets and he thought he saw the ninth and last of that party lying in a dim corner. But, though he tried to penetrate the dark angle of the place, he slid away, still uncertain. It might be the ninth man rolled in for the night, or it might only be a pile of blankets heaped up on the bunk.

      He came quietly to the door and set the muzzle of one gun under the latch; before lifting the latch and throwing the barrier wide he debated with his better judgment and again set aside the small voice of caution. If ever he was to put the fear of the Lord into the heart of Theodorik Perrine it must be now, when the man, fresh from wanton destruction, sat relaxed and confident over the card game. The gun muzzle rose with the latch, the door flew open, and he threw both guns down upon the assembled renegades. They couldn't see him as he stood outside the place and to one side of the opening, but they heard plain enough the brittle snap of his command.

      "Hit for the ceilin'—you! Up! Throw 'em high in a hustle! Sleepy—don't move out of that chair or I'll spill you all over the place! That's right—now you buzzards roll off them bunks and move back. What're you stallin' for, Red? I'm not goin' to do any countin'. Get back there, you hairless Mexican pup! Keep your elbows away from that lamp, Sleepy! It won't hurt me none to send some of you lousy, putty-livered coyotes to hell and gone down the chute!"

      Nobody could miss the restless, jammed-up temper of Jim Chaffee at that moment. It crackled and smashed around their heads like the popping of a bull whip; it beat upon them stronger and harsher with each word until it seemed he was on the very point of ripping the hut wide with bullets. All hands rose; those in the bunks dropped to the floor and marched back of the stove. Sleepy Slade and Theodorik Perrine never moved from the table. Sleepy's gaunt and saturnine face was an evil thing to see in the lamplight; Perrine's back was turned to the door and the lifted fists were doubled tight.

      Eight men in the hut, no more. Chaffee kicked the door wider and saw only a huddle of blankets on that shadow cloaked bunk. Either the ninth man was out in the bowl or he had split off from the gang earlier. It was a gamble, and he had to move fast. "One at a time—drop your belts. One at a time—startin' from the corner!"

      Belts fell. Theodorik Perrine, staring at the opposite wall, threw a question over his giant shoulders. "What kind of a play do yuh think to make, Chaffee? Yore on trembly ground. I'm sayin' it. You ain't got no backin' in this county. Not any more. Yuh can't make the bluff good."

      "Stand up, Theodorik, and slip your belt. Now sit down. Sleepy, do the same. Don't try to stall on me. It's just as easy to leave a few of you cattle butchers on the floor. Sit down, Sleepy! Theodorik, take off your boots and throw 'em back here."

      "What's the need o'—"

      The first shock of surprise having passed, they sparred for time. Chaffee knew by the way Perrine bent and hauled at his boots that the renegade expected a turn of the tide. That ninth man must be in the neighborhood. Chaffee pulled himself a little more to one side of the door's opening. "Theodorik, if that boot seems tight I'll help it with a little lead. Throw it back. Other one, too." They came sailing through the door. Chaffee took one of them and slid it beneath his belt. "Rest of you imitation bad men do the same. Throw 'em this way."

      Perrine turned in the chair, big face grinning malevolently. "I'm plumb interested. Yuh can't make the bluff good. The jail won't hold none of us. Politics have changed, Chaffee. What else do yuh aim to try? Stirrup S is on the slide. It don't count no more."

      Boots came flying out. Chaffee kicked them on into the yard. Eight men stood in their socks, glowering. "What I aim to do, Theodorik, is to string all you jack rabbits on one rope and walk you barefoot across the lava and back to the ranch. By the time you get that far you'll be halter broke." Then he stopped, thinking he heard a remote sound beyond the yard.

      "You can't do it!" roared Theodorik Perrine. "You can't make the bluff good!"

      "Barefoot," replied Chaffee grimly. "And if a jail won't hold you, then Stirrup S will. We'll break your back, Theodorik. That's the beginning. Stand up. Sleepy, get that rope and put a hitch around your neck. You boys won't be doin any more dirty chores for a while. Neither will your boss when we find out who he is."

      "You'll last about as long as a snowball in—" began Perrine. The rest of it was cut off by a grumbling, half-awake question from the barn. "What's all that racket over there, huh?"

      Theodorik Perrine's face turned thunder black. "He went asleep again! It's the last time for him!"

      "What's the racket?" repeated the voice, coming nearer. Chaffee crouched as far in the shadows as he dared. Perrine began to shift weight and grumble. The whole crowd inside the hut started moving. Chaffee warned them with a sibilant whisper. Perrine laughed. Of a sudden the ninth man out in the yard yelled. His gun smashed the silence, bullets ripped the ground by the door and Perrine shouted a warning. Chaffee fired at the ninth man point-blank. The hut trembled, the light went out and confusion turned the place upside down. Another shot plunged past Chaffee; and he, marking the source by the mushrooming purple point of

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