Some inkling of the man's hideous meaning seared him and ran like an ice-blast through him.

"You've done all the meanness you'll ever do in this world. Poor Dave Long is the last man you'll ever kill. We're going to do justice right now."

"Dave Long! I never heard of him," the prisoner repeated mechanically.

"Good G.o.d, do you think I'm a murderer?"

One of the men thrust himself forward. "We know it. Y'u and that h.e.l.lish partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate. But y'u made a mistake when y'u come to Fort Lincoln. He lived there before he went to be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary. I'm his brother. These gentlemen are his neighbors. Y'u're not going back to prison. Y'u're going to stay right here under this cottonwood."

If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign of it. His gray eye pa.s.sed from one to another of them quietly without giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.

"You're going to lynch me then?"

"Y'u've called the turn."

"Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?"

"Without giving y'u a chance to escape or sneak back to the penitentiary."

The thing was horribly unthinkable. The warm mellow afternoon sunshine wrapped them about. The horses grazed with quiet unconcern. One of these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with machine-like regularity. Another was rolling a cigarette. There was nothing of dramatic effect. Not a man had raised his voice. But Neill knew there was no appeal. He had come to the end of the pa.s.sage through a horrible mistake. He raged in bitter resentment against his fate, against these men who stood so quietly about him ready to execute it, most of all against the girl who had let him sacrifice himself by concealing the vital fact that her brother had murdered a guard to effect his escape.

Fool that he had been, he had stumbled into a trap, and she had let him do it without a word of warning. Wild, chaotic thoughts crowded his brain furiously.

But the voice with which he addressed them was singularly even and colorless.

"I am a stranger to this country. I was born in Tennessee, brought up in the Panhandle. I'm an irrigation engineer by profession. This is my vacation. I'm headed now for the Mal Pais mines. Friends of mine are interested in a property there with me and I have been sent to look the ground over and make a report. I never heard of Kinney till to-day.

You've got the wrong man, gentlemen."

"We'll risk it," laughed one brutally. "Bring that riata, Tom."

Neill did not struggle or cry out frantically. He stood motionless while they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes were quiet and steady.

"If you want to leave any message for anybody I'll see it's delivered,"

promised Duffield.

"I'll not trouble you with any."

"Just as you like."

"He didn't give poor Dave any time for messages," cried Tom Long bitterly.

"That's right," a.s.sented another with a curse.

It was plain to the victim they were spurring their nerves to hardihood.

"Who's that?" cried one of the men, pointing to a rider galloping toward them.

The newcomer approached rapidly, covered by their weapons, and flung himself from his pony as he dragged it to a halt beside the group.

"Steve Fraser," cried Duffield in surprise, and added, "He's an officer in the rangers."

"Right, gentlemen. Come to claim my prisoner," said the ranger promptly.

"Y'u can't have him, Steve. We took him and he's got to hang."

The lieutenant of rangers shook his dark curly head.

"Won't do, Duffield. Won't do at all," he said decisively. "You'd ought to know law's on top in Texas these days."

Tom Long shouldered his way to the front. "Law! Where was the law when this ruffian Kinney shot down my poor brother Dave? I guess a rope and a cottonwood's good enough law for him. Anyhow, that's what he gits."

Fraser, hard-packed, lithe, and graceful, laid a friendly hand on the other's shoulder and smiled sunnily at him.

"I know how you feel, Tom. We all thought a heap of Dave and you're his brother. But Dave died for the law. Both you boys have always stood for order. He'd be troubled if he knew you were turned enemy to it on his account."

"I'm for justice, Steve. This skunk deserves death and I'm going to see he gits it."

"No, Tom."

"I say yes. Y'u ain't sitting in this game, Steve."

"I reckon I'll have to take a hand then."

The ranger's voice was soft and drawling, but his eyes were indomitably steady. Throughout the Southwest his reputation for fearlessness was established even among a population singularly courageous. The audacity of his daredevil recklessness was become a proverb.

"We got a full table. Better ride away and forget it," said another.

"That ain't what I'm paid for, Jack," returned Fraser good-naturedly.

"Better turn him over to me peaceable, boys. He'll get what's coming to him all right."

"He'll get it now, Steve, without any help of yours. We don't aim to allow any b.u.t.ting in."

"Don't you?"

There was a flash of steel as the ranger dived forward. Next instant he and the prisoner stood with their backs to the cottonwood, a revolver having somehow leaped from its scabbard to his hand. His hunting-knife had sheared at a stroke the riata round the engineer's neck.

"Take it easy, boys," urged Fraser, still in his gentle drawl, to the astonished vigilantes whom his sudden sally had robbed of their victim.

"Think about it twice. We'll all be a long time dead. No use in hurrying the funerals."

Nevertheless he recognized battle as inevitable. Friends of his though they were, he knew these st.u.r.dy plainsmen would never submit to be foiled in their purpose by one man. In the momentary silence before the clash the quiet voice of the prisoner made itself heard.

"Just a moment, gentlemen. I don't want you spilling lead over me. I'm the wrong man, and I can prove it if you'll give me time. Here's the key to my room at the hotel in San Antonio. In my suit-case you'll find letters that prove--"

"We don't need them. I've got proof right here," cut in Fraser, remembering.

He slipped a hand into his coat pocket and drew out two photographs.

"Boys, here are the pictures and descriptions of the two men that escaped from Yuma the other day. I hadn't had time to see this gentleman before he spoke, being some busy explaining the situation to you, but a blind jacka.s.s could see he don't favor either Kinney or Struve, You're sure barking up the wrong tree."

The self-appointed committee for the execution of justice and the man from the Panhandle looked the prison photographs over blankly. Between the hard, clean-cut face of their prisoner and those that looked at them from the photographs it was impossible to find any resemblance. Duffield handed the prints back with puzzled chagrin.

"I guess you're right, Steve. But I'd like this gentleman to explain how come he to be riding the horse one of these miscreants stole from Maloney's barn last night."