u'd
be dead by now. Maybe that would have been just as well, seeing how
things have turned out," he grinned. "Still--have a smoke?"

"I never used tobacco in my life," declined the youth somewhat primly.

"No, I don't reckon you ever did!" Jack eyed him with a certain amount
of pitying amusement. "A fellow that will come gold-hunting without a
gun to his name, would not use tobacco, or swear, or do anything that
a perfect lady couldn't do! However, you put up a good fight with your
fists, old man, and that's something."

"I'd have been killed, though, if you hadn't shot when you did. They
were too much for me. I haven't tried to thank you--"

"No, I shouldn't think you would," grinned Jack. "I don't see yet
where I've done you any particular favor: from robbers to Vigilance
Committee might be called an up-to-date version of 'Out of the
frying-pan into the fire.'"

The boy glanced fearfully toward the closed tent-flaps. "Ssh!" he
whispered. "The guard can hear--"

"Oh, that's all right," returned Jack, urged perhaps to a conscious
bravado by the very weakness of the other. "It's all day with me,
anyway. I may as well say what I think.

"And so--" He paused to blow one of his favorite little smoke rings
and watch it float to the dingy ridge-pole, where it flickered and
faded into a blue haze "--and so, I'm going to say right out in
meeting what I think of this town and the Committee they let measure
out justice. Justice!" He laughed sardonically. "Poor old lady, she
couldn't stop within forty miles of Perkins' Committee if she had
forty bandages over her eyes, and both ears plugged with cotton!
You wait till their farce of a trial is over. You may get off, by a
scratch--I hope so. But unless Bill Wilson--"

"Aw, yuh needn't pin no hopes on Bill Wilson!" came a heavy, malicious
voice through the tent wall. "All hell can't save yuh, Jack Allen!
You've had a ride out to the oak comin' to yuh for quite a while, and
before sundown you'll get it."

"Oh! Is that so, Shorty? Say, you're breaking the rules, you old
pirate; you're talking to the prisoners without permission. As the
Captain's most faithful dog Tray, you'd better shoot yourself; it'll
save the town the trouble of hanging you later on!" He smoked calmly
while Shorty, on guard without, growled a vilifying retort, and the
other guards snickered.

"Ah, brace up!" he advised his quaking companion again. "If my company
doesn't damn you beyond all hope, you may