"You're going back to Kusiak with me—to give a life for the one you took."
"What's that?" cried Gordon, surprised.
"Just as I'm telling you. I've been on your heels ever since you left town. You and Holt are going back with me as my prisoners."
"But what for?"
"For robbing the bank and murdering Robert Milton, as you know well enough."
"Is this another plant arranged for me by you and Selfridge?" demanded Elliot.
Macdonald ignored the question and lifted his voice. "Come out of that tent, Holt,—and come with your hands up unless you want your head blown off."
"Holt isn't in that tent, you damned idiot. If you want to know—"
"Come now, if you expect to come alive," cut in the Scotchman ominously. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and covered the shadow thrown by the sun on the figure within.
Gordon flung out a wild protest and threw the frozen slab of bacon at the head of Macdonald. With the same motion he launched his own body across the stove. A fifth of a second earlier the tent flap had opened and Sheba had come out.