leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.

"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive,
he's ours." He gave crisp orders.

"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.

For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded
man had whipped up a rifle and fired.

Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too
many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail.
You see, it's loaded with buckshot."

One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such
audacity as this was new to him.

"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned
amusing," growled his leader.

"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful
guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."

"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets
through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice,
just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the
other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get
him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."

"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row