t this little group gathered such of the Cross Canonites
as were still upon their legs, while, glad of the diversion, their
enemies hurriedly withdrew; round about the outfit stood, their fingers
still clutching smoking guns, but pale and sobered.

Circuit lay with eyes closed, feebly gasping for breath, and just as
the girl's nervous fingers further rent his shirt and exposed the
mortal wound through the right lung made by her own tiny pistol,
Circuit half rose on one elbow and whispered: "Boys, write--write Netty
I was tryin' to git to her."

And then he fell back and lay still.

For five minutes, perhaps, the girl crouched silent over the body,
gazing wide-eyed into the dead face, stunned, every faculty paralyzed.

Presently Lee softly spoke:

"Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did Mat a good turn
killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in
this bunch; hurts us 'bout enough, I reckon."

Roused from contemplation of her deed, the girl rose to her knees,
still clinging to Circuit's stiffening fingers, and sobbingly murmured,
in a voice so low the awed group had to bend to hear her:

"Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall thank God Mat never
knew. This is my husband lying dead beneath Mat. They made me do
it--my family--nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich horse-breeder of our
county, till home was such a hell I couldn't stand it. It was four
long years ago, and never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the
truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they breathed a love I
little have deserved.

"Reckon that's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill Ball; "hain't a bit
shore myself airy critter that ever stood up in petticoats deserved a
love big as Circuit's. Excuse _us_, please."

And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted the body and bore
it away into the town.

In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to be the twenty-second
anniversary of Circuit's death, two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling
slowly out of Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a
corner of the burying ground and stopped. There within, hard by, a
woman, bent and gnarled and gray as the sage-brush about her, was
tenderly decking a grave with pinon wreaths.

"Hope to never cock another gun, Bill Ball, ef she ain't thar ag'in!"

"She shore is, Lee," answered Bill; "provin' we-all mislaid no bets
reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to a little ranch and br