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started to walk across the short space that separated it from the Montaña dwelling.

Montoya and Crawford snapped their rifles into position. Two bullets knocked up the ground at Chavez's feet.

"Darn poor shootin', I call that," said Crawford.

"Purty far," replied Montoya philosophically.

"Well, pard, let's wake 'em up."

They began to fire steadily. For hours they kept it up. Through the windows and doors of the two houses that sheltered Chavez's men crashed the bullets of the concealed marksmen.

Fernando Herrera of Chavez's command was famed among his people for his skill with a rifle. For a long time he scrutinized the hillside through a pair of field glasses. At every shot, Crawford and Montoya for an instant showed head and shoulders at exactly the same spot from behind their boulders.

Through a crack in the back door of the Montaña house Herrera drew a bead with his long-range buffalo rifle upon the spot at which Crawford would appear. He waited for a moment with his finger on the trigger. Crawford's rifle worked into position from behind the rock. His right shoulder appeared. His head came into view as he sighted along the barrel. Whang! Herrera's bullet went singing upward across the intervening space of nine hundred yards—afterward measured. It struck the hammer of Crawford's gun, veered at a slight angle, and ploughed through his body, breaking his back. Crawford's yell echoed up and down the cañon. He catapulted into the air, tumbled off a ledge, and came rolling and plunging down to the bottom of the hill. He fetched up on a level space at the edge of a field of standing corn which shielded