"Ker-CHEW!"

McTurpin and his two companions wheeled like lightning. "Who's this?" the gambler snarled. He took a step toward the Bruiser. "Who the devil let him in to spy on us?"

"Aw, stow it, Alec!" said the former fighter. "'E's no spy. 'E's one o' our lads from the bay. Hi can tell by 'is haccent."

Benito rose. His hand crept toward the derringer, but McTurpin was before him. "Don't try that, blast you!" he commanded. "Now, my friend, let's have a look at you.... By the Eternal! It's young Windham!"

"The cove you don hout o' his rawnch?" asked the Bruiser, curiously.

"Shut up, you fool!" roared the gambler. His face was white with fury. "What are you doing here?" he asked Benito.

"Getting some points on--er--land holding," said Windham. He was perfectly calm. Several times this man had overawed, outwitted, beaten him. Now, though he was in the enemy's country, surrounded by cutthroats and thieves, he felt suddenly the master of the situation. Perhaps it was McTurpin's dismay, perhaps the spur of his own danger. He knew that there was only one escape, and that through playing on McTurpin's anger. "A most ingenious scheme, but it'll fail you!"

"And why'll it fail, my young jackanapes?" the gambler blazed at him. "Do you reckon I'll let you go to give the alarm?"

It was then Benito threw his bombshell. It was but a shrewd guess. Yet it worked amazingly. "Your plan will fail," he said with slow distinctness, "because Sam Brennan and Alcalde Geary know you set the town afire. Because they're going to hang you."

Rage and terror mingled in McTurpin's face. Speechless, paralyzing wrath that held him open-mouthed a moment. In that moment Windham acted quickly. He hurled the bottle, still half full of ale, at his antagonist, missed him by the fraction of an inch and sent the missile caroming against the Bruiser's ear, thence down among a pyramid of glasses. There was a shivering tinkle; then the roar as of a maddened bull. The Bruiser charged. Windham shot twice into the air and fled. He heard a rending crash behind him, a voice that cried aloud in mortal pain, a shot. Then, silence.