iring of men, no deputy
to do this job. _You_ did it fair and square--yourself?"

"Yes, by God!" burst out Madison Clay in a hoarse voice. "Who says I
didn't?"

Reassured, yet believing that Madison Clay had nerved himself for
the act by an over-draught of whiskey, which had affected his memory,
Breckenridge said curtly, "Then wake up and 'lite' out, ef ye want me
to stand by you."

"Go to the corral and pick me out a hoss," said Madison slowly, yet
not without a certain dignity of manner. "I've suthin' to say to
Salomy Jane afore I go." He was holding her scribbled note, which he
had just discovered, in his shaking hand.

Struck by his kinsman's manner, and knowing the dependent relations
of father and daughter, Breckenridge nodded and hurried away. Left
to himself, Madison Clay ran his fingers through his hair, and
straightened out the paper on which Salomy Jane had scrawled her note,
turned it over, and wrote on the back:--

You might have told me you did it, and not leave your ole
father to find it out how you disgraced yourself and him, too,
by a low-down, underhanded, woman's trick! I've said I done
it, and took the blame myself, and all the sneakiness of it
that folks suspect. If I get away alive--and I don't care much
which--you needn't foller. The house and stock are yours; but
you ain't any longer the daughter of your disgraced father,

MADISON CLAY.

He had scarcely finished the note when, with a clatter of hoofs and a
led horse, Breckenridge reappeared at the door elate and triumphant.
"You're in nigger luck, Mad! I found that stole hoss of Judge
Boompointer's had got away and strayed among your stock in the corral.
Take him and you're safe; he can't be outrun this side of the state
line."

"I ain't no hoss-thief," said Madison grimly.

"Nobody sez ye are, but you'd be wuss--a fool--ef you didn't take him.
I'm testimony that you found him among your hosses; I'll tell Judge
Boompointer you've got him, and ye kin send him back when you're safe.
The judge will be mighty glad to get him back, and call it quits. So
ef you've writ to Salomy Jane, come."

Madison Clay no longer hesitated. Salomy Jane might return at any
moment,--it would be part of her "fool womanishness,"--and he was
in no mood to see her before a third party. He laid the note on
the table, gave a hurried glance around the house, which he grimly
believed he was leaving forever, and, striding to the doo