What Elliot saw sent the starch through his body. He did not move an inch, still sat crouched by the fire, but every nerve was at tension, every muscle taut. For he was looking at a rifle lying negligently in brown, steady hands. They were very sure hands, very competent ones. He knew that because he had seen them in action. The owner of the hands was Colby Macdonald.
The Scotch-Canadian stood at the edge of a willow grove. His face was grim as the day of judgment.
Elliot laughed irritably. He was both annoyed and disgusted.
"What's worrying you now? Do you think I'm jumping my bond?"
"You're going back to Kusiak with me--to give a life for the one you took."
"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."
"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.
The sight of her paralyzed Macdonald and saved her lover's life. It distracted the mine-owner long enough for him to miss his chance. A bullet struck the stove and went off at a tangent through the tent canvas not two feet from where Sheba stood. A second went speeding toward the sun. For Gordon had followed the football player's instinct and dived for the knees of his enemy.
They went down together. Each squirming for the upper place, they rolled over and over. The rifle was forgotten. Like cave men they fought, crushing and twisting each other's muscles with the blind lust of primordials to kill. As they clinched with one arm, they struck savagely with the other. The impact of smashing blows on naked flesh sounded horribly cruel to Sheba.