tily. "And how many that I've once put my
hands on have got loose?"

Again Bill Wood answered, being the senior member.

"None. Your score is exactly one hundred percent, sheriff."

Kern sighed. "Gents," he said, "the average is plumb spoiled."

It caused a general lifting of heads and then a respectful silence. To
have offered sympathy would have been insulting; to ask questions was
beneath their dignity, but four pairs of eyes burned with curiosity.
The least curious was Arizona. He was a fat, oily man from the
southland, whose past was unknown in the vicinity of Woodville, and
Arizona happened to be by no means desirous of rescuing that past from
oblivion. He held the southlander's contempt for the men and ways of
the north. His presence in the office was explained by the fact that he
had long before discovered it to be an excellent thing to stand in with
the sheriff. After this statement from Kern, therefore, he first
glanced at his three companions, and, observing their agitation, he
became somewhat stirred himself and puckered his fat brows above his
eyes, as he glanced back at Kern.

"You've heard of the killing of Quade?" asked the sheriff.

"Yesterday," said Red Chalmers.

"And that they got the killer?"

"Nope."

"It was a gent you'd never have suspected--that skinny little
schoolteacher, Gaspar."

"I never liked the looks of him," said Red Chalmers gloomily. "I always
got to have a second thought about a gent that's too smooth with the
ladies. And that was this here Jig. So he done the shooting?"

"It was a fight over Sally Bent," explained the sheriff. "Sandersen and
some of the rest in Sour Creek fixed up a posse and went out and
grabbed Gaspar. They gave him a lynch trial and was about to string him
up when a stranger named Sinclair, a man who had joined up with the
posse, steps out and holds for keeping Gaspar and turning him over to
me, to be hung all proper and legal. I heard about all this and went
out to the Bent house, first thing this morning, to get Gaspar, who was
left there in charge of this Sinclair. Any of you ever heard about
him?"

A general bowing of heads followed, as the men began to consider, all
save Arizona, who never thought when he could avoid it, and positively
never used his memory. He habitually allowed the dead past to bury its
dead.

"It appears to me like I've heard of a Sinclair up to Colma," murmured
Bill Wood. "That was four or five years back, and I b'lieve