"Let him go!" called Terry faintly. "Let him go, Steve! Oh, dear God—if you love me——"
"Come out, Blenham!" shouted Steve. "I give you my word, so help me God, to let you go scot-free. Come out!"
"Not so fast," mocked Blenham, lingering over his high card. "You've got to promise for your men; you've got to send 'em across the valley. You've got to have a horse handy for me to ride. You've got to back down the valley yourse'f. An' ol' man Packard has got to do the same."
Old man Packard roared out his curses, but in the end, seeing nothing else to do, he went grumbling down the rocky slope, back to his horse and to his men. But first he had known perhaps the supreme humiliation of his life. He had said:
"Blenham, on my word of honor as a Packard an' a gentleman, I'll let you go. An' I'll make my men let you go."
And there were actually tears hanging to his lashes as he swung again into his saddle.
"He has not hurt you, Terry?" asked Steve before he too would go down the slope.
"No," cried Terry. "No, no! But, oh, hurry, hurry, Steve. I feel that I'll smother, I'll die!"
From down in the valley they watched, close to a score of hard-eyed, wrath-filled men, as Blenham stepped out of the crevice and on to the ledge. They saw how he jeered as he stepped over the body of the man he had shot.
"A fool was Barbee," he called. "A fool the Packards, ol' an' young!"