ion. Already the news had reached the justice of what had taken
place. He was one of those amiable busybodies who take care of other
people's troubles for them. Sometimes his efforts came to grief and
sometimes they did not.

"Hit the trail, you lads," he ordered. "I'll l-look out for this
b-business. The exc-c-citement's all over anyhow. Drift."

The range-riders disappeared. At best the situation was an embarrassing
one. It is not pleasant to be in the company of one who has just shown
himself a poltroon and is acutely aware of it.

Blister took Dillon into his office. He lowered himself into the biggest
chair carefully, rolled a cigarette, and lit up.

"Tell me about it," he ordered.

"Nothin' to tell." Bob leaned against the table and looked drearily at
the floor. The world had come to an end for him. That was all. "He showed
up an' took June from me--made me tell her to go along with him."

"How did he do that? Did he cover you with a gun?"

"No. I had the gun--till he took it from me." He gave the explanation he
had used twice already within the hour. "I'm no good."

Blister heaved himself up from the chair and waddled closer to the boy.
He shook a fat forefinger in his face. He glared at him fiercely.

"Say, where you from?"

"Austin, Texas, when I was a kid."

"Well, damn you, Texas man, I w-want to t-tell you right now that you're
talkin' blasphemy when you say you're n-no good. The good Lord made you,
didn't He? D-d' you reckon I'm goin' to let you stand up there an' claim
He did a pore job? No, sir. Trouble with you is you go an' bury yore
talent instead of w-whalin' the stuffin' outa that Jake Houck fellow."

"I wish I was dead," Bob groaned, drooping in every line of his figure.
"I wish I'd never been born."

"Blasphemy number two. Didn't He make you in His image? What right you
got wishin' He hadn't created you? Why, you pore w-worm, you're only a
mite lower than the angels an' yore red haid's covered with glory."
Blister's whisper of a voice took unexpectedly a sharp edge. "Snap it up!
That red haid o' yours. Hear me?"

Bob's head came up as though a spring had been released.

"B-better. K-keep it up where it belongs. Now, then, w-what are you
aimin' for to do?"

Bob shook his head. "Get outa this country, like Hollister said. Find a
hole somewheres an' pull it in after me."

"No, sir. Not none. You're gonna stay right here--in the country round
Bear Cat--where every last man, woman, a