, and shook and worried, and gave
to it the swaying motion.

"Hi, ya! _Chook_! you Spawn of Hell!" yelled Webster Shaw.

But Batard glared at him, and snarled threateningly, without loosing his
jaws.

Slackwater Charley got out his revolver, but his hand was shaking, as
with a chill, and he fumbled.

"Here you take it," he said, passing the weapon over.

Webster Shaw laughed shortly, drew a sight between the gleaming eyes, and
pressed the trigger. Batard's body twitched with the shock, threshed the
ground spasmodically for a moment, and went suddenly limp. But his teeth
still held fast locked.

THE STORY OF JEES UCK

There have been renunciations and renunciations. But, in its essence,
renunciation is ever the same. And the paradox of it is, that men and
women forego the dearest thing in the world for something dearer. It was
never otherwise. Thus it was when Abel brought of the firstlings of his
flock and of the fat thereof. The firstlings and the fat thereof were to
him the dearest things in the world; yet he gave them over that he might
be on good terms with God. So it was with Abraham when he prepared to
offer up his son Isaac on a stone. Isaac was very dear to him; but God,
in incomprehensible ways, was yet dearer. It may be that Abraham feared
the Lord. But whether that be true or not it has since been determined
by a few billion people that he loved the Lord and desired to serve him.

And since it has been determined that love is service, and since to
renounce is to serve, then Jees Uck, who was merely a woman of a swart-
skinned breed, loved with a great love. She was unversed in history,
having learned to read only the signs of weather and of game; so she had
never heard of Abel nor of Abraham; nor, having escaped the good sisters
at Holy Cross, had she been told the story of Ruth, the Moabitess, who
renounced her very God for the sake of a stranger woman from a strange
land. Jees Uck had learned only one way of renouncing, and that was with
a club as the dynamic factor, in much the same manner as a dog is made to
renounce a stolen marrow-bone. Yet, when the time came, she proved
herself capable of rising to the height of the fair-faced royal races and
of renouncing in right regal fashion.

So this is the story of Jees Uck, which is also the story of Neil Bonner,
and Kitty Bonner, and a couple of Neil Bonner's progeny. Jees Uck was of
a swart-skinned breed, it is true, but she