He spoke aloud, to himself or to his horse or to the empty world at large, as lonely riders often do on the plains or in the hills, but from the heavens above an answer dropped down to him in a heavy, masterful voice:
"Git back along that trail pronto!"
Roberts looked up. A flat rock topped the bluff above. From the edge of it the barrel of a rifle projected. Behind it was a face masked by a bandana handkerchief. The combination was a sinister one.
If the line-rider was dismayed or even surprised, he gave no evidence of it.
"Just as you say, stranger. I reckon you're callin' this dance," he admitted.
"You'll be lucky if you don't die of lead-poisonin' inside o' five minutes. No funny business! Git!"
The cowboy got. He whirled his pony in its tracks and sent it jogging down the back trail. A tenderfoot would have taken the gulch at breakneck speed. Most old-timers would have found a canter none too fast. But Jack Roberts held to a steady road gait. Not once did he look back—but every foot of the way till he had turned a bend in the cañon there was an ache in the small of his back. It was a purely sympathetic sensation, for at any moment a bullet might come crashing between the shoulders.
Once safely out of range the rider mopped a perspiring face.
"Wow! This is your lucky day, Jack. Ain't you got better sense than to trail rustlers with no weapon but a Sunday-School text? Well, here's hopin'! Maybe we'll meet again in the sweet by an' by. You never can always tell."