Don't you understand that Red wants
revenge, and has misrepresented this Indian attack to tally with his
other lies?"

"I wouldn't say nothing against Red, old tap. It ain't gentlemanly to
call dead folk liars."

"Dead folk!" echoed Wilfred, starting up.

"I KNOWED you didn't understand that Red's off the trail forever,"
Mizzoo rejoined gently. "I knowed you wouldn't be accusing him so
rancid, had you been posted on his funeral."

Wilfred felt a great relief, then a great wonder.

"He's dead. I don't say he's better off, I don't know; but I guess the
world is. I don't like to censure them that's departed. Brick Willock
is still with us, and him the county can't say enough against. His
life wouldn't be worth two bits if anybody laid eyes on 'im. Consider
his high-handed doings. Wasn't it enough in the past to kill Red's
brother, but what he must needs collect his pals, stop the stage-coach,
shoot two men trying to get Red, and one of 'em the innocent driver?
You say, yes. But hold on, that ain't all he done. No, sir. The very
next day after Red swore out that warrant--and it was yesterday, if you
ask ME--what is saw, when we men of Mangum comes out of our doors?
Three corpses lying on the sidewalk, side by side. You say, what
corpses? Wait. I'm coming to that. One was that driver; one was the
pard that got shot with the driver. The other was Red Kimball his own
self."

"I knew the bodies had been carried away from the trail," exclaimed
Wilfred in perplexity. He related his discoveries of the stormy night.

"But you didn't know they had been brung to town all this distance to
be laid beside Red. You didn't know Red had been stabbed so he could
be added, too. You didn't know the three of them had been left on the
street to rile up every man with blood in his veins. Why, Wilfred, it's
an insult to the whole state of Texas, Such high-handed doings ain't
to be bore. If Brick Willock don't want to be tried in court, is that
an excuse for killing off all that might witness against him? It might
of been ONCE. But we're determined to have a county of law-abiding
citizens. Such free living has got to be nipped in the bud, or we'll
have another No-Man's Land. We're determined to live under the laws.
This is civilization. The cattle business is dead, land is getting
tied up by title-deeds, the deer's gone, and there's nothing left but
civilization. And I am the--er--as sheriff of Greer County I a