e and fired his eyes with a murderous light.

"Shall I kill him?" he asked Dorothy, and at the frightful tone of his
voice she found the power to shake her head, although her mouth was too
dry for speech.

"Take his gun," said Wade sharply and the girl stepped forward.

She reeled toward Moran, who, to do him justice, showed little fear,
and pulled his revolver from his hip pocket. She held it out to Wade,
who broke it with his free hand by pressing the butt against the top of
the safe, and spilled the cartridges on the floor.

"Now you can leave us, Dorothy," he said quietly.

"No. I'll stay, Gordon," she answered.

"Moran," Wade continued evenly, without paying any more attention to
her, "the only reason why I shall not kill you is because Miss Purnell
does not want your worthless life upon her conscience. A man like you
ought to die. You're not fit to live."

"Can I put my hands down?"

"No; keep 'em where they are!" Wade gestured again with the gun. "I wish
I had a string on each of your thumbs so I could hoist them higher. I've
just been through this safe of yours." The agent started. "I've got
those maps of my range in my pocket."

"Much good they'll do you."

"They'll do me more good alive than they will you dead, and you're going
to die. So help me God, you are! We'll come together again some day."

"I hope so," Moran declared venomously, and even Dorothy was struck by
the courage he showed.

"And then there won't be anybody to be held responsible but me." Wade
grinned in a slow, horrible fashion. "It'll rest light on me, I promise
you. And another thing. I'm going to leave you trussed up here in this
office, like I left your friend the Sheriff a few days ago, and along
about morning somebody'll find you and turn you loose. When you get
loose, you want to forget that you saw Miss Purnell here to-night. I've
meant to have her and her mother leave town for a bit until this mess
blows over, but things aren't fixed right for that just now. Instead,
I'm going to leave her in the personal care--the _personal_ care, you
understand me, of every decent man in Crawling Water. If anything
happens to her, you'll toast over a slow fire before you die. Do you get
that?"

"She's a good kid," said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the
weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under the tension of
his grasp.

"I guess it's a good thing you stayed, Dorothy," the latter remarked
grimly. "This fell