ou don't run now. Ask Jerry what
they're saying in Sour Creek tonight?"

Jerry volunteered the information. "They're all wondering why you
wasn't strung up today, when they got so much evidence agin' you. Also
they're thinking that the boys played plumb foolish in turning you over
to this stranger, Sinclair, to guard. But they're waiting for Sheriff
Kern to come over from Woodville an' nab you in the morning. They's
some that says that they won't wait, if it looks like the law is going
to take too long to hang you. They'll get up a necktie party and break
the jail and do their own hanging. I heard all them things and more,
Jig."

John Gaspar looked uncertainly from one to the other of his friends.

"You've _got_ to go!" cried Sally.

"I've got to go," admitted Cold Feet in a whisper.

"I've got Meg saddled for you already. She's plumb gentle."

"Just a minute. I've forgotten something."

"You don't mean you're going back into that room where Sinclair is?"

"I won't waken him. He's sleeping like the dead."

Jig turned away from them and hurried back to his room. Having opened
and closed the door softly, he went to a chest of drawers near the
window and fumbled in the half-light of the low-burning lamp. He
slipped a small leather case into the breast pocket of his coat, and
then stole back toward the door, as softly as before. With his hand on
the knob, he paused and looked back. For all he knew, Sinclair might be
really awake now, watching his quarry from beneath those heavy lashes,
waiting until his prisoner should have made a definite attempt to
escape.

And then the big man would rise to his feet as soon as the door was
closed. The picture became startlingly real to John Gaspar. Sinclair
would slip out that window, no doubt, and circle around toward the
horse shed. There he would wait until his prisoner came out on Meg, and
then without warning would come a shot, and there would be an end of
Sinclair's trouble with his prisoner. Gaspar could easily attribute
such cunning cruelty to Sinclair. And yet there was something untested,
unprobed, different about the rangy fellow.

Whatever it was, it kept Gaspar staring down into the lean face of
Sinclair for a long moment. Then he went resolutely back into the
living room and faced Sally Bent; Jerry was already waiting outdoors.

"I'm not going," said Gaspar slowly. "I'll stay."

Sally cried out. "Oh, Jig, have you lost your nerve ag'in? Ain't you
got _no_ co