Now it was going to happen. I wondered how they would do it; one instance had been described to me by a witness, but that was done from a bridge, and there had been but a single victim. This morning, would one have to wait and see the other go through with it first?

The smell of smoke reached me, and next the rattle of tin dishes. Breakfast was something I had forgotten, and one of them was cooking it now in the dry shelter of the stable. He was alone, because the talking and the steps were outside the stable, and I could hear the sounds of horses being driven into the corral and saddled. Then I perceived that the coffee was ready, and almost immediately the cook called them. One came in, shutting the door behind him as he reentered, which the rest as they followed imitated; for at each opening of the door I saw the light of day leap into the stable and heard the louder sounds of the rain. Then the sound and the light would again be shut out, until some one at length spoke out bluntly, bidding the door be left open on account of the smoke. What were they hiding from? he asked. The runaways that had escaped? A laugh followed this sally, and the door was left open. Thus I learned that there had been more thieves than the two that were captured. It gave a little more ground for their suspicion about me and my anxiety to pass the night elsewhere. It cost nothing to detain me, and they were taking no chances, however remote.

The fresh air and the light now filled the stable, and I lay listening while their breakfast brought more talk from them. They were more at ease now than was I, who had nothing to do but carry out my role of slumber in the stall; they spoke in a friendly, ordinary way, as if this were like every other morning of the week to them. They addressed the prisoners with a sort of fraternal kindness, not bringing them pointedly into the conversation, nor yet pointedly leaving them out. I made out that they must all be sitting round the breakfast together, those who had to die and those who had to kill them. The Virginian I never heard speak. But I heard the voice of Steve; he discussed with his captors the sundry points of his capture.

“Do you remember a haystack?” he asked. “Away up the south fork of Gros Ventre?” “That was Thursday afternoon,” said one of the captors. “There was a shower.” “Yes. It rained. We had you fooled that time. I was laying on the ledge above to report your movements.” Several of them laughed. “We thought you were over on Spread Creek then.” “I figured you thought so by the trail you after the stack. Saturday we watched you turn your back on us up Spread Creek. We were snug among the trees the other side of Snake River. That was another time we had you fooled.” They laughed again at their own expense. I have heard men pick to pieces a hand of whist with more antagonism.

Steve continued: “Would we head for Idaho? Would we swing back over the Divide? You didn’t know which! And when we generalled you on to that band of horses you thought was the band you were hunting--ah, we were a strong combination!” He broke off with the first touch of bitterness I had felt in his words.

“Nothing is any stronger than its weakest point.” It was the Virginian who said this, and it was the first word he had spoken.

“Naturally,” said Steve. His tone in addressing the Virginian was so different, so curt, that I sup posed he took the weakest point to mean himself. But the others now showed me that I was wrong in this explanation.

“That’s so,” one said. “Its weakest point is where a rope or a gang of men is going to break when the strain comes. And you was linked with a poor partner, Steve.” “You’re right I was,” said the prisoner, back in his easy, casual voice.

“You ought to have got yourself separated from him, Steve.” There was a pause. “Yes,” said the prisoner, moodily. “I’m sitting here because one of us blundered.” He cursed the blunderer. “Lighting his fool fire queered the whole deal,” he added. As he again heavily cursed the blunderer, the others murmured to each other various I told you so’s” “You’d never have built that fire, Steve,” said one.