"I d'no as that's got anything to do with it, but I'm forty-three," Jake retorted defiantly.

"You meant to live with her?"

"I meant to treat her right," was the sullen reply.

"But livin' with her, an' her another man's wife."

"No, sir. That fake marriage with Dillon don't go. She was promised to me." He broke out suddenly in anger: "What's eatin' you all? Why don't you go out an' help me find the girl? These whatfors an' whyfors can wait, I reckon."

Blister dropped a bomb. "She's found."

"Found!" Houck stared at the fat man. "Who found her? Where? When?"

"Coupla hours ago. Here in this r-room. Kinda funny how she'd swim the river a night like this an' walk eight-ten miles barefoot in the snow, all to get away from you, an' her goin' with you of her own accord."

"It wasn't eight miles--more like six."

"Call it six, then. Fact is, Mr. Houck, she was mighty scared of you--in a panic of terror, I'd say."

"She had no call to be," the Brown's Park settler replied, his voice heavy with repressed rage. "I'm tellin' you she wasn't right in her head."

"An' you was takin' advantage of that to make this li'l' girl yore--to ruin her life for her," Hollister flung back.

In all his wild and turbulent lifetime Jake Houck had never before been brought to task like this. He resented the words, the manner, the quiet insistence of these range men. An unease that was not quite fear, but was very close to it, had made him hold his temper in leash. Now the savage in him broke through.

"You're a bunch of fool meddlers, an' I'm through explainin'. You can go to hell 'n' back for me," he cried, and followed with a string of crackling oaths.

The eyes of the punchers and cattlemen met one another. No word was spoken, but the same message passed back and forth a score of times.

"I expect you don't quite understand where you're at, Mr. Houck," Larson said evenly. "This is mighty serious business for you. We aim to give you a chance to tell yore story complete before we take action."

"Action?" repeated Houck, startled.

"You're up against it for fair," Reeves told him. "If you figure on gettin' away with a thing like that in a white man's country you've sure got another guess comin'. I don't know where you're from or who you are, but I know where you're going."

"D-don't push on the reins, Tom," the justice said. "We aim to be reasonable about this, I reckon."

"Sure we do." Dud countered with one of Blister's own homely apothegms.

"What's the use of chewin' tobacco if you spit out the juice? Go through, I say. There's a cottonwood back of the kitchen."

"You're fixin' for to hang me?" Houck asked, his throat and palate gone suddenly dry.

"You done guessed it first crack," Tom nodded.

"Not yet, boys," protested Haines in his whispering falsetto. "I reckon we'd ought to wait an' see how the girl comes out."

"Why had we?" demanded a squat puncher from the Keystone. "What difference does it make? If ever any one needed stringin' up, it's the guy here. He's worse than Douglas or any other Injun ever was. Is it yore notion we'd oughta sit around with our hands in our pockets, Blister, while reptiles like this Houck make our girls swim the river at night an'

plough barefoot through snowstorms? I ain't that easy-dispositioned myself."

"Shorty's sure whistlin'. Same here," another chap-clad rider chipped in.

"An' here."

Blister dropped into the background inconspicuously and vanished. He appeared to be in a minority of one, not counting Houck, and he needed reenforcements.

"We'll hear what Mr. Houck has to say before we pass judgment," Larson said.

But Houck, looking into the circle of grim faces that surrounded him, knew that he was condemned. Nothing that he could say would make any difference. He shrugged his heavy shoulders.

"What's the use? You've done made up yore minds."

He noticed that the younger fellows were pressing closer to him. Pretty soon they would disarm him. If he was going to make a fight for his life, it had to be now. His arm dropped to his side, close to the butt of the revolver he carried.

He was too late. Hollister jumped for his wrist and at the same time Mike flung himself across the bar and garroted him. He struggled fiercely to free himself, but was dragged down to the floor and pinioned. Before he was lifted up his hands were tied behind him.

Unobserved, the front door of the barroom had opened. An ice-coated figure was standing on the threshold.

Houck laughed harshly. "Come right in, Tolliver. You'll be in time to take a hand in the show."

The little trapper's haggard eyes went round in perplexity. "What's the trouble?" he asked mildly.

"No trouble a-tall," answered the big prisoner hardily. "The boys are hangin' me. That's all."

CHAPTER XIV

HOUCK TAKES A RIDE

Tolliver rubbed a hand uncertainly over a bristly chin. "Why, what are they doin' that for, Jake?"

"Are you the Tolliver girl's father?" asked Larson.

"Yes, sir."

"Then we got bad news for you. She's sick."

"Sick?" the trapper's lips trembled.

"A mighty sick girl. This man here--this Houck, if that's what he calls himself--took her away from the young fellow she'd married and started up to Brown's Park with her. Somehow she gave him the slip, swam the river, an' came back to town barefoot through the snow. Seems she lost her shoes while she was crossin' the Blanco."

The color washed away beneath the tan of the father's face. "Where's she at?"

"Here--at the hotel. Mrs. Gillespie an' Doc Tuckerman are lookin' after her."

"I'd like to go to her right away."