"I don't understand.…"
Both Sefton and Lemarc, with one accord had jerked in their horses, their hands dropping the ropes of the animals they led and going the swift, certain way to the gun in the coat pocket.
"It's a hold-up, Marc!" cried Sefton, driving his heels into his horse's sides and coming on in defiance of the rifle still trained upon him.
"Garcia!"
Garcia shrugged his shoulders and watched, having nothing else to do.
"Wait!" screamed Marc after Sefton. "Can't you see the uniform? He's one of the Mounted."
Sefton saw. He saw too that at the door was David Drennen; that at his side was Marshall Sothern; that big Kootanie George stood out, a little in front. His face went white; he jerked his horse back upon its haunches; his teeth cut, gnawing, at his lip. He saw and he understood. He knew that for him the play was over; he knew that within the old house was a fortune for many men and that he had had his hands on it and that it was not to be for him. His white face went whiter with the rage and despair upon him.
"It's you that did for me!" he yelled. "You, John Harper Drennen! You! Damn you … take that!"
In the first grip of the fury upon him he fired. Fired so that the short barrel of his revolver, spitting out the leaden pellets, grew hot. He was too close to miss. Marshall Sothern clutched at Drennen's arm and went down, sinking slowly, not so much as a groan bursting from his lips. And as he dropped Kootanie George fell with him, the big Canadian's broad chest taking the first of the flying bullets.
Drennen and Max fired almost at the same instant, the rifles snapping together. Too close to miss a target like that, and Sefton, clutching at his horse's mane, slipped from the saddle and to the ground.