happen to the supply. Folks, I _know_! I'm a
reliable man, and I've rode with a rope around my neck for over five
years, and Warfield offered me the same old five hundred every time I
monkeyed with the water supply as ordered. He'd have done it slick;
don't worry none about that. The biggest band of thieves he could get
together is that company. So if you folks have got any sense, you'll
bust it up right now.

"Bill Warfield, what I've got to say to _you_ won't take long. You
thought you'd make a grand-stand play with the law, and at the same time
put me outa the way. You figured I'd resist arrest, and you'd have a
chance to shoot me down. I know your rotten mind better than you do. You
wanted to bump me off, but you wanted to do it in a way that'd put you
in right with the public. Killing me for kidnapping this girl would
sound damn romantic in the newspapers, and it wouldn't have a thing to
do with Thurman or Frank Johnson, or any of the rest that I've sent over
the trail for you.

"Right now you're figuring how you'll get around this bawling-out I'm
giving you. There's nobody to take down what I say, and I'm just a mean,
ornery outlaw and killer, talking for spite. With your pull you expect
to get this smoothed over and hushed up, and have me at a hanging bee,
and everything all right for Bill! Well----"

His eyes left Warfield's face and went beyond the staring group. His
face darkened, a sneer twisted his lips.

"Who're them others?" he cried harshly. "Was you afraid four wouldn't be
enough to take me?"

The four turned heads to look. Bill Warfield never looked back, for Al's
gun spoke, and Warfield sagged at the knees and the shoulders, and he
slumped to the ground at the instant when Al's gun spoke again.

"That's for you, Lone Morgan," Al cried, as he fired again. "She talked
about you in her sleep last night. She called you Loney, and she wanted
you to come and get her. I was going to kill you first chance I got. I
coulda loved this little girl. I--could----"

He was down, bleeding and coughing and trying to talk. Swan had shot
him, and two of the deputies who had been there through half of Al's
bitter talk. Lorraine, unable to get up and run, too sturdy of soul to
faint, had rolled over and away from him, her lips held tightly
together, her eyes wide with horror. Al crawled after her, his eyes
pleading.

"Little Spitfire--I shot your Loney--but I'd have been good to you,
girl. I watched yuh all night