--why not give it a whirl up here in this country?"

"Because there ain't another mine like yores in the territory. No,
we'll go south. Swing wants to go--been wanting to go for some time."

"Bub-but I thought you were going to stay up here," persisted Molly,
her cheeks a little white.

"Not--not now," Racey said, hastily. "So long, take care of yoreself."

He reached for her hand, gave it a quick squeeze, then picked up his
hat and walked out of the house without another word or a backward
look.

* * * * *

"What makes me sick is not a cent out of Old Salt," said Racey,
wrathfully, as he and Swing Tunstall walked their horses south along
the Marysville trail.

"What else could you expect?" said the philosopher Swing. "We
specified in the agreement that it was cows them jiggers was gonna run
on the range. We didn't say nothin' about a mine."

"'We?'" repeated Racey. "'We?' You didn't have a thing to do with that
agreement. I made it. It was my fool fault we worked all those months
for nothing."

"What's the dif?" Swing said, comfortably. "We're partners. Deal
yoreself a new hand and forget it. Tough luck we couldn't 'a' made a
clean sweep of that bunch, huh?"

"Oh, I dunno. Suppose Peaches, Nebraska, and Thompson did get away. We
did pretty good, considerin'. You can't expect everything."

"Alla same they'd oughta been a reward--for Jack Harpe, anyway. Wells
Fargo is shore getting mighty close-fisted."

"Jack did better than I thought he would. He never opened his yap
about Marie being in that Keeleyville gang."

"Maybe he didn't know for shore or else knowed better. Bull was in
that gang, too, and Bull got his throat cut. If Jack had done any
blattin' about Marie and Keeleyville he might 'a' had to stand trial
for murder right here in this county instead of going down to New
Mexico to be tried for a murder committed ten years ago with all that
means--evidence gone rusty with age and witnesses dead or in jail
themselves most like. Oh, he'll be convicted, but it won't be first
degree, you can stick a pin in that."

"I wonder if he did kill Bull."

"I wonder, too. Didja know who Bull really was, Swing?... Marie's
brother. Yep, she told me about it yesterday."

"Her own brother, huh? That's a odd number. Alla same I'll bet she
don't miss him much."

"Nor Nebraska, neither. _He'll_ never come back to bother her again,
that's a cinch. Who's that ahead?"

"That" was Molly