"Reade! Hazelton!" choked Rafe Bodson, leaping forward. "You fellows certainly have grit! Here, Hazelton, let me help you with that loco (crazy) hotel man."

Jeff, in the meantime had rolled Jim Duff over on his back, then sat on him. When Duff returned to consciousness he found himself gazing into the muzzle of an automatic revolver.

Harry and Bodson made a quick, sure job of tying Ashby's wrists with a cord that Rafe supplied.

"You think you've stopped me, don't you?" snarled the hotel man, wild with rage.

"We stopped you in time to keep you from shooting down two men who were at your mercy," retorted Harry sternly.

"What's that?" gasped Rafe.

"They were going to shoot you with your hands in the air," Tom declared.

"That's another of your lies, Reade," snarled the gambler.

"It's you who are doing the lying, Duff," rejoined Tom stiffly. "I came to my senses just in time to hear you tell Ashby to kill one man while you killed the other."

"So that was the game, was it?" said Jeff.

"No, it wasn't," snapped Jim Duff.

"Shut up," ordered Jeff unbelievingly. "Duff, we've seen enough of you to-night to know that an Apache has ten times as much honor as you have, and a rattlesnake has twenty times as much decency. You lying, miserable, white-livered, smooth-tongued, poisonous reptile in human form. If you open your mouth to say another word you'll have me so wild that I'll pull the trigger of this automatic before I intend to do so."

"Thank goodness you had become conscious too, Harry!" breathed Tom fervently. "I don't believe I could have knocked both men over in time to prevent a killing. I managed to get my hands free just in time to get on the job."

"I had known for some moments what was going on around me," Hazelton replied. "But I was lying with my eyes closed, and keeping mighty quiet.

I was trying to hear your breathing, so I could decide whether you had come to your senses, when all of a sudden you sat up and freed my hands.

Ugh!" he added with disgust, as he reached up and slipped the remnant of rawhide noose from around his neck.

"What'll we do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff dryly. "Tie 'em up and ship 'em into Paloma?"

"Fire off your revolver two or three times," suggested Tom, who had caught a faint, far away sound of an automobile. "That may bring a machine over here."

"You shoot, Rafe," urge Moore. "I'll want to keep my weapon handy for this crooked card-sharp."

Rafe obligingly emptied one of his revolvers into the air. From a distance came the honk of an automobile horn, as though in answer to the signal shots. Soon the noise of an automobile engine became more distinct. Finally the body of a large car loomed up in the darkness. A few shouts brought the car to the spot.

"This you, Mr. Reade?" called the joy voice of Superintendent Hawkins.

"And Hazelton, safe, also?"

All five seats in this car were occupied. Six more men had to be crowded in somehow, after Jim Duff had been tied with his hands behind him. Most of them had to stand.

"Back to Paloma, as fast as you can go with safety," ordered Mr.

Hawkins, as soon as all were inside. "Gracious, but there'll be a joyful demonstration back in camp as soon as the good word is received."

As the car sped along over the desert the story was told of how the pursuit had been made.

It was Mr. Hawkins who had tried to wire from camp into town, calling for cars and posses to go in pursuit of the raiders.

As Tom had imagined at the outset, the raiders had cut the railroad telegraph wire. Discovering this, Mr. Hawkins had leaped on to the bare back of a horse at camp and had covered the distance at a gallop.

Men had been quickly rounded up within the very few minutes that were needed in getting the cars out and ready to run. There were hundreds of men in Paloma who had grown to despise Duff and all the evil crew behind the gambler.

From the outset the leaders of the posse, on hearing, of the direction first taken by the fleeing raiders, had calculated on the gully as the probable place of halting.

While the posse was still on the way out to the gully, and at some distance away, the sound of Ashby's discharging gun had reached them.

Reasoning that the raiders would probably place a guard only on the town end of the gully, the posse had made a wide detour, so as to approach the gully from the westward. Leaving the cars at a considerable distance, the pursuers, with Mr. Hawkins at their head, had made quick time on foot.

In the fighting that had followed five men of the posse had been hit, though none dangerously. These wounded men, after the fight, had been sent back to Paloma in one of the automobiles.

"We saw some of the raiders fall during the lighting," said Mr. Hawkins, "but their friends made a quick retreat and got all hands back to their horses. We felt sure they didn't have you, Mr. Reade and Mr. Hazelton, so we let the raiders slip away and spent our time in trying to find where you had been taken or if you had escaped. Well, it's all right now!"

As the automobile party approached the town, searchlights from other cars showed the remaining pursuers had heard the signals sounded by the horn of the first automobile and were returning.

As the returning men entered the outlaying streets the little town was found to be anything but a quiet community. Despite the early morning hour, the streets were crowded.

"Where's the chief of police?" inquired Mr. Hawkins, as the first car entered the town and pulled up.

"I'll find him for you, Cap," offered a man on horseback.

"If you will be so good."

As the horseman galloped away Hawkins signed to the others to step out.

"Duff, we're not going to be troubled with your company much longer,"

smiled Hawkins.

Tom and Harry had already leaped down to the sidewalk when the gambler was helped to alight. Duff's hands were still behind his back though, unknown to his captors, he had succeeded in working them free.

With a stealthy movement the gambler suddenly reached forward, drawing a revolver from another man's holster.

Ere the owner was aware of the loss of the weapon Duff took full aim at Tom Reade.

Crack!

It was the pistol of a deputy sheriff that spoke first. That officer had been the only one to detect the gambler's action, and he had fired instantly.

Jim Duff sank, to the sidewalk, groaning while the deputy sheriff dryly explained the cause of his firing. A loaded revolver was still gripped in Duff's right hand, though the gambler was too weak and in too much pain to fire.

Dr. Furniss' office was near by, and the young physician, sharing in the popular excitement, was awake. He came out on the run, bending over the wounded man to examine him. "Duff," said Dr. Furniss gravely, after a brief examination, "I deem it my duty to tell you that you've dealt your last card. Have you any wishes to express before we move you?"

"I--want to--talk to--Reade," groaned the injured man.

"Certainly," replied Tom, when the request was repeated to him. Stepping softly to where the gambler lay on the sidewalk, Reade bent over him.

"Duff," said Reade gravely, "you and I haven't always been the best of friends, but I can say honestly that I'm sorry to see you in this plight. I hope that you may recover, yet get some happiness out of life."

But the gambler's eyes blazed with ferocity.