p with Doane. Didn't Doane make the same kind of a proposition to me?
Didn't he tell me he was short in his accounts, an' it could be
covered up if the bank was robbed, for then he could say more money
was took than really was? I'll say he did. An' I was goin' to see if
he'd go through with it, an' then I was going to wise you up so we
could get him cold."

With knitted brows the sheriff stared at Eagen, then looked at the
white-faced Doane.

"Tell him I'm tellin' the truth!" shouted Eagen at the shaking bank
cashier. "You can't get out of it."

There was a tense moment.

Doane shook his head weakly; he was a picture of guilt.

"He got scared I wouldn't go through with the play, sheriff," Eagen
continued. "Thought maybe I'd make off with all the kale. So he framed
it with Rathburn, an' I caught 'em about to divide it here."

"He lies!" screamed Doane. "I didn't frame it with Rathburn. I can
prove it. That man"--he pointed a shaking finger at Eagen--"has come
to me with threats and made me take securities I knew were stolen.
There's some of them in the bank now. Some of the stuff he took from
the stage driver yesterday is there! He's pulled job after job----"

Eagen, recovering from his amazement at the man's outbreak, leaped and
drove his powerful fist against Doane's jaw, knocking him nearly the
length of the room, where he crashed with his head against the stones
of the fireplace. Eagen turned quickly. His eyes were blazing red.

"You're the man!" he yelled wrathfully. "You're the yellow Coyote----"

His right hand went to his gun, as there came a crashing report. He
staggered back, trying to get out the weapon which had not left his
holster. He sank down to his knees, still glaring death at the man
above him, still fumbling at his gun. Then he lurched forward on his
face.

Rathburn flipped his smoking pistol so that its barrel landed in his
hand. Then he tendered it, butt foremost, to Sheriff Bob Long. Long
took it and threw it on the table, looking first at Rathburn, then at
the dead man on the floor. He waved toward the doors and windows.

"You boys can draw back," he ordered.

Mallory stepped to the fallen Doane. The man's face had set in a white
cast. He felt his heart.

"He did for him," he said, rising.

Laura Mallory came walking slowly up to the sheriff. Her face was
ghastly after what she had witnessed.

"Sheriff Long," she said in a voice strangely calm, "we heard
Eagen"--she shuddered, a