eriff's great astonishment, and also to his delight at the way it had
turned out. Shields thought of his own personal experiences with the
outlaw, and this put him deeper in debt. His opinion as to there being
much good in his enemy's makeup was strengthened, and he smiled at the
fighting ability and fairness of the man who had declared a truce with
him by the big bowlder on the Apache Trail.

"Oh, I hope they don't catch him!" Helen cried anxiously. "Can't you do
something, James?" she implored. "He saved us, and he is wounded, too!
Can't you stop them?"

The sheriff looked to the south in the direction taken by the
cow-punchers, and a hard light grew in his eyes.

"No, not now," he replied decisively. "They've had too much time now. And
it's safe to bet that they rode at full speed just as soon as they got
out of my sight. They knew Bill would tell me. They're miles away by
this time. But don't you worry, Sis--they won't get him. Five curs never
lived that could catch a timber wolf in his own country--and if they
do catch him, they will wish they hadn't. And I almost hope they win the
chase, for they'll lose their fool lives. It will be a lesson to the
rest of the bullies of the Cross Bar-8--and small loss to the community at
large, eh, Charley?"

"Yore shore right, Jim," replied Charley, smiling at Miss Ritchie.
"Did you ever hear tell of the dog that retrieved a lighted dynamite
cartridge?" he asked her. "No? Well, the dog left for parts unknown."

"That's good, Charley," Shields responded with a laugh. "The dog just
wouldn't mind, and he was only a snarling, no-account cur at that,
wasn't he?" Then he looked at the coach, and his heart softened to the
hunted man. "I can see it all, now," he said slowly. "Those punchers must
have forced him out of the Backbone, and he was getting away when he
saw the plight you were in. By God!" he cried in appreciation of the
act. "It wasn't no one man's work, five Apaches! One man stopping five of
those devils--it was no work for a murderer, not much! It was clean-cut
nerve, and if I ever see him I'll tell him so, too! I'll let him know that
he's got some friends in this country. They can say what they please,
but there's more manhood in him to the square inch than there is in all
the people who cry him down; and who are in a great way responsible for
his being an outlaw. I'm ready to swear that he never wantonly shot a man
down; no, sir, he didn't. And I reckon he never had m