he made surety doubly sure. He could have taken two
or three known men, and they would have been ample
to do the work. Instead, he picked out half a dozen.
For just as Henry Allister had recognized that indescribable element of danger in the new outlaw, so the
man hunter himself had felt it. On the one hand, he
knew the fighting qualities of the Lanning blood. On
the other hand, he had seen Andrew Lanning face to
face and had watched both his eye and his hand. During that interview in the room of Hal Dozier, if there
had been one instant during which both eye and hand
had wavered, Andrew would have been a dead man; but,
though the eye might change, the hand was never relaxed. Thinking of these things, Hal Dozier determined
that he would not tempt Providence. He had his commission as a deputy marshal, and as such he swore in his
men and started for the cabin of Hank Rainer.
When the news had spread, others came to join him, and he could not refuse. Before the cavalcade entered the mouth of the cañon he had some thirty men about him. They were all good men, but in a fight, particularly a fight at night, Hal Dozier knew that numbers to excess are apt to simply clog the working parts of the machine. All that he feared came to pass. There was one breathless moment of joy when the horse of Andrew was shot down and the fugitive himself staggered under the fire of the posse. At that moment Hal had poised his rifle for a shot that would end this long trail, but at that moment a yelling member of his own group had come between him and his target, and the chance was gone. When he leaped to one side to make the shot, Andrew was already among the trees.
Afterward he had sent his men in a circle to close in on the spot from which the outlaw made his stand, but
