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doorstep. The lamp inside the house was extinguished immediately.
    â€œCruver!” he called. “Answer me!”
    Silence, and then Cruver’s full voice boomed out, “That’s you, ain’t it, Wade?”
    Jim answered, “Clear out of this place, or we’ll burn it on top of you!”
    â€œWhat if we do?”
    â€œThen walk to your horse corral and wait there till I tell you to go.”
    There was a long silence. Finally, surprisingly, Cruver yelled, “All right.”
    â€œCome ahead, then.”
    The first man tentatively stepped across the sill. Drawing no fire, he decided it was safe and started nonchalantly toward the corral. Suddenly, from the other side of the rincon, a shot whipped out, and the Star 88 hand stumbled, fell on his knees, and then rolled on his back.
    Black fury mounted in Jim. He raised his rifle, sighted it at the spot where the gun flame showed, and fired. There was a wild yell in the night, and then Ball’s voice bawled, “Cut it out!”
    Jim yelled, “Hold your fire, damn you!”
    Then he looked down at the shack again. The hit man had crawled back into the house.
    â€œCruver!”
    â€œGo to hell, you bushwhacker!” Cruver yelled.
    â€œStay where you are if you don’t want to get shot!” Jim called.
    There was only one course left now. Cruver would not come out unless he was smoked out, since Jim had betrayed his word. And not one man in that shack would get out alive if those three across the rincon could help it. Still, angry reflection told Jim that the place would have to be burned unless Excelsior was to be laughed out of the country. And since Cruver had not put up a fight, Jim guessed that he had no guns in the house, but had left them in the bunkhouse. And that meant that Ball had not warned them.
    Cursing bitterly, Jim slid down the mesa’s talus again. His actions, plain as daylight, drew no fire from the house. First he let the horses out of the corral, then set about firing the place. With hay brought from the big barn, he set off the wagon shed, the big barn, the hay barn, the bunkhouse, and the cookshack.
    A broken bale of hay he had saved out, and this he dragged back to the foot of the mesa. Calling Miles to help him, working like fury, he dragged the half bale up to where Ben Beauchamp, wide-eyed, was watching.
    â€œBuild a fire,” he ordered then. “Light that hay and then roll it down against the blind end of that shack. Make it fast. If they try to come out, let ’em go. Only, if you hit one of ’em, I’ll kill you!”
    He vanished into the night then on a dead run, bound for the other side of the rincon. Halfway across it, he saw the hay start its fiery descent down the slope. Gathering speed, scattering a tail of sparks like a meteor, it bounded up in the air, leaping and bumping over rocks, hit the flat, and, carried by its momentum, rolled against the end of the shack. It settled there, almost burned out, and then the flames started to lick at the bark of the bottom row of logs.
    The whole night was lighted now, so he had no trouble picking out Scoville, Ball, and MaCumber nestled behind a high rock halfway down the slope.
    â€œClear out!” Jim ordered from the rim.
    Obediently they toiled back up the slope. By the time they reached the rim, Ben and Miles had come.
    Jim waited until the three of them were erect, and then he asked calmly, “Who shot that man?”
    There was no answer. MaCumber eyed him sullenly, even smiling a little. With a flick of his wrist, Jim palmed up his six-gun and said, “Ben, hear me?”
    â€œYes, sir,” Ben said, his voice little and respectful now.
    â€œBack off there fifteen yards, put a gun on this crew, and shoot the first man that tries to interfere.”
    He waited until Ben had done so. “Miles,” Jim said. “Get over with the others.”
    Miles stepped over to join the other three. “Shuck