on that deep gloom out of which at any moment might
spurt forth the red flash of death. From within the cabin came loud
oaths inspired by cards or drink, as if the inmates would drown any
calls for mercy or sounds of execution that might be abroad in the
night.

"Now, Brick Willock," the leader spoke grimly, "take your turn first.
That kid's got to die, and you are to do the trick, and do it without
any foolishness."

"I can't," Willock declared doggedly.

"Oh, yes; yes, you can, Brick. You see, we can't 'tend to no infant
class, and I ain't hard-hearted enough to leave a five-year-old girl to
die of hunger on the prairie; nor do I mean to take her to no town or
stage-station as a card for to be tracked by. Oh, yes, you can, Brick,
and now's the time."

"Red," exclaimed Willock desperately, "I tell you fair, and I tell you
foul, that this little one lives as long as I do."

"And what do you aim to do with her, eh, Brick?"

Willock made no reply. He had formed no plans for his future, or for
that of the child; but his left arm closed more tightly about her.

"Now, Brick," said Red slowly, "this ain't the first time you have
proved yourself no man for our business, and I call Kansas to witness
you've brought this on yourself--"

Without finishing his sentence, Red swiftly raised his arm and fired
pointblank at Willock's head as it was defined above the sleeping form.
Though famed as an orator, Red understood very well that, at times,
action is everything, and there is death in long speaking. He was noted
as a man who never missed his mark; and in the Cimarron country, which
belonged to no state and therefore to no court, extensive and deadly
had been his practise, without fear of retribution.

Now, however, his bullet had gone astray. The few words to which he
had treated himself as an introduction to the intended deed had proved
his undoing. They had been enough to warn Willock of what was coming;
and just before Kansas had been called on "to witness," that is an
instant before Red fired, Willock had sent a bullet through the
threatening wrist. The two detonations were almost simultaneous, and
Red's roar of pain, as he dropped his weapon, rang out as an
accompaniment to the crash of firearms.

The next instant, Willock, with a second shot from his six-shooter,
stretched Kansas on the ground; then, rushing forward with reversed
weapon, he brought the butt down on Red's head with such force as to
depri