reman's watch ticked loudly in the palm of his left hand and the
Colt in his right never quivered. The first minute passed in terrifying
silence, then the second, then the third, but all the time The Orphan's
eyes stared steadily at the man before him, gray, cruel, unblinking.

"They told me to do it! They told me to do it!" shrieked the pitiful,
unnerved wreck of a man as he convulsively opened and shut his hand.
"I didn't want to do it! I swear I didn't want to do it! As God is above,
I didn't want to! They made me, they made me!" he cried, his words swiftly
becoming an unintelligible jumble of meaningless sounds. He stared at the
black muzzle of the Colt, frozen by terror, fascinated by horror and
deadened by despair. The watch ticked on in maddening noise, for his every
sense was now most acute, beating in upon his brain like the strokes of a
hammer. Then the foreman glanced quickly at it. The gun in Tex's hand
leaped up, but not quickly enough, and a spurt of smoke enveloped his face
as he fell. The Orphan stepped back, dropping the Colt into its holster.

[Illustration: "The Orphan stepped back a pace and dropped the Colt into
its holster." (_See page_ 390.)]

"The courage of despair!" he whispered. "But I'm glad he died game," he
slowly added. Then he suddenly buried his face in his hands: "Helen!" he
cried. "Helen--forgive me!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GREAT HAPPINESS

The town was rapidly losing sharpness of detail, for the straggling
buildings were becoming more and more blurred and were growing into sharp
silhouettes in the increasing dusk, and the sickly yellow lights were
growing more numerous in the scattered windows.

Helen moved about the dining-room engaged in setting the table and
she had just placed fresh flowers in the vase, when she suddenly stopped
and listened. Faintly to her ears came the pounding hoofbeats of a
galloping horse on the well-packed street, growing rapidly nearer with
portentous speed. It could not be Miss Ritchie, for there was a vast
difference between the comparatively lazy gallop of her horse and the
pulse-stirring tattoo which she now heard. The hoofbeats passed the
corner without slackening pace, and whirled up the street, stopping in
front of the house with a suddenness which she had long since learned
to attribute to cowboys. She stood still, afraid to go to the door,
numbed with a nameless fear--something terrible must have happened,
perhaps to The Orphan. The rid