But if
you'll call your fellows off and get out of the house, I'll agree to
turn you and the young lady loose. But nothing must be taken from the
house."
"That seems right generous of you," said Ted, with a sarcastic smile,
which Burk didn't see because his head was turned the other way.
"It's a darned more than you deserve, but I don't want any more of my
fellows shot up."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Just step out there and holler to your boys to quit firing, and tell
them that you're going to quit, and then----"
Ted just laughed, and Burk turned upon him with a scowl.
At that moment there was a cheer from the direction of the house; then a
few scattering shots from the men in the shrubbery.
Ted heard the doors of the house open, and the swift patter of running
feet. The old Moon Valley yell was in his ears. All the men in the
shrubbery had sprung to their feet, and were running wildly about. A man
crawled through the bushes--the man with the face he had seen at the
window.
As he crawled close to Ted the expression of his face was awful to
contemplate.
Such fiendish, murderous hatred he had never seen in a human countenance
before.
When he was so close to Ted that he could hear his feverish breathing,
the man suddenly thrust forward a pistol until the muzzle was within an
inch of Ted's head.
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