aid. 'This is a railroad fight. Why didn't they send the head
of their own gang after me?'--naming you." Kennedy nodded toward
Whispering Smith.

"Naming me."

"Banks says, 'I'm sheriff of this county, and will be a long time
yet!' I took the papers from his breast pocket," continued Kennedy.
"You can see where he was hit." Kennedy laid the sheriff's packet on
the table. Bucks drew his chair forward and, with his cigar between
his fingers, picked the packet up and opened it. Kennedy went on: "Ed
told Sinclair if he couldn't land him himself that he knew a man who
could and would before he was a week older. He meant you, Gordon, and
the last thing Ed told me was that he wanted you to serve the papers
on Sinclair."

A silence fell on the company. One of the documents passing under
Bucks's hand caught his eye and he opened it. It was the warrant for
Sinclair. He read it without comment, folded it, and, looking at
Whispering Smith, pushed it toward him. "Then this, I guess, Gordon,
belongs to you."

Starting from a revery, Whispering Smith reached for the warrant. He
looked for a moment at the blood-stained caption. "Yes," he said,
"this, I guess, belongs to me."

CHAPTER XXXVI

DUTY

The stir of the town over the shooting of Banks seemed to Marion, in
her distress, to point an accusing finger at her. The disgrace of what
she had felt herself powerless to prevent now weighed on her mind, and
she asked herself whether, after all, the responsibility of this
murder was not upon her. Even putting aside this painful doubt, she
bore the name of the man who had savagely defied accountability and
now, it seemed to her, was dragging her with him through the slough of
blood and dishonor into which he had plunged.

The wretched thought would return that had she listened to him, had
she consented to go away, this outbreak might have been prevented. And
what horror might not another day bring--what lives still closer to
her life be taken? For herself she cared less; but she knew that
Sinclair, now that he had begun, would not stop. In whichever way her
thoughts turned, wretchedness was upon them, and the day went in one
of those despairing and indecisive battles that each one within his
own heart must fight at times with heaviness and doubt.

McCloud called her over the telephone in the afternoon to say that he
was going West on the evening train and would not be over for supper.
She wished he could have come, for h