"It's a hold-up," replied Isham, "and you're dad-burned lucky it didn't turn out a killing. I had my six-shooter on your heart and if you'd ever went for that gun—we'd've left you here for the buzzards. What takes you over into Maverick Basin?"
"That is my business," replied the prisoner, suddenly matching his arrogance, and Isham glanced meaningly at his brother.
"Oh, it is, eh?" he observed, reaching over behind a rock and fetching out a rawhide rope. "Well, I'll damn soon show you that it's mine!"
He shook out a loop, flipped it back into the sand and then, with the practiced skill of a cowboy, snapped it over his prisoner's head. Before he could move, the stranger's arms were pinioned; and as the rope was jerked taut Red caught him from behind and tied his hands hard and fast.
"Now!" cursed Red, "come through, Mister Man—are you going in to join them Sorry Blacks?"
"Never heard of 'em," answered the man, and Red's sunburned lips drew back in a hateful, distorted grin.
"I know that's a lie," he said, "so we'll jest cut you off right here."
He motioned to Isham, and, with their prisoner between them, they toiled up a trail to the east. The canyon wall was low on that side of the creek and at the base of the cliff there was a row of cliff-dwellings, strung along under the overhang of the rim.
It was from behind their loopholed walls that the Scarboroughs watched the trail, to cut off such chance travelers as he, and as the prisoner climbed up his lip curled scornfully at the sight of their elaborate precautions. In spite of their bluster something still seemed to tell him that they were not as bad as they looked; although often, as he knew, the most hideous crimes have been committed by cravens at heart. They entered a low door and passed on from room to room until at last he was thrust into a dark and noisome space and bound with his back against a post.
It was one of those black holes which the cliff-dwellers themselves had apparently used as a prison and against the square of light which poured in from above he saw the heavy lattice of bars. Wooden bars, and something else—and as he looked again he saw the sinister outlines of a loop. It hung from a beam like the slack body of a snake, and there was a hangman's knot on the end!