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man left the house and hurried to catch up with the others Frank looked over at Red, who was bellied down behind a thick-trunked live oak. Red nodded.
    Frank lifted his rifle, sighted a foot behind the walking puncher’s heels and let go. The shot bellowed out to break the morning stillness, raising a slapping echo in the valley.
    The puncher wheeled, mouth gaping, looking off into the timber. Beach Freeman, from further toward the corrals, shot then. No geyser of dust marked the spot where the slug hit, but it must have been close, for the puncher turned and streaked for the corrals. Red’s gun joined in and then Samse’s, hastening his flight. Somebody yelled in the corrals, and four heads poked up over the top of the corral bars and then ducked down again as a fusillade of shots winged over them.
    Their answering shots were not long in coming, and, as Frank expected, they were six guns and not rifles. Satisfied, he crawled back into the timber, circled, and when the shack was between himself and the corral he came forward to the edge of the timber close to the lean-to. The cook was nowhere in sight, and the shots beyond pounded steadily and often, keeping the crew driven to the shelter of the barns and the corrals. Frank studied the shack a moment, listening for any shot from it, and he heard none.
    He raced across the fifty feet of open space, gun in hand, and flattened himself against the lean-to and listened. Someone was stirring inside, and that would be the cook.
    Then he hefted his gun and lunged inside. The kitchen was empty, the breakfast pans cluttering the table. Softly, then, he tiptoed to the door into the bunkhouse and looked inside. Against the back wall was the cook, and he was holding open the back window which hinged at the top, keeping his body out of sight.
    Ten feet from the window, so that his body would be invisible to Frank’s crew outside, stood Milabel, a rifle to his shoulder. Beyond, out in the timber, Frank could see Red Shibe crawling back from his tree into the deep timber.
    Frank whipped up his gun and shot from the hip, and the cook let the window down with a crash just as Milabel’s gun exploded.
    Milabel and the cook wheeled—to look into the steady barrel of Frank’s Colt.
    â€œDrop it,” Frank said softly to Milabel.
    The surprise on the big foreman’s face tightened into a savage anger, and for a moment Frank wondered if he would take the chance of levering in a shell and shooting before he was downed. Then the rifle clattered to the floor, and Milabel slowly raised his big hands over his head.
    â€œYou can’t get away with it, Christian!” he said. “We’ll wipe this place off the map tomorrow.”
    â€œ You won’t,” Frank said. “You won’t be wipin’ anything except your nose.” His glance shifted to the cook. “You, go out that door and high-tail it for the corrals.”
    The cook licked his lips, an expression of stark fear creeping into his slack face. “I’ll git shot,” he said.
    â€œHere or out there, take your choice,” Frank said.
    The cook slowly circled the room, his hands above his head, looked desperately at Milabel for a sign that was not given, and then he paused in the doorway. Beyond the corner of the house, he knew, he would be fair game for what seemed to be fifty rifles back in the timber.
    Frank shot once at the cook’s feet, and with a cry of terror the cook started to run. Frank knew that nobody would shoot him, although they would hurry his flight until he reached the corrals.
    Frank took Milabel’s guns, threw them out the door, then settled his back against the wall and regarded the foreman, not saying anything. The hammering of the shots from the timber, the answering shots from the corral, beat a steady tattoo in the morning air.
    â€œWhat are you waitin’ for!” Milabel said angrily. “Shoot and get it over with!”
    Frank