accounting--and if that failed, for strength enough to die with
his denunciation spoken. Yet he realized the need of conserving his
tenuous powers and so, gauging his abilities, he lay motionless and to
all seeming unconscious, while the tall figure continued to tower over
him.

Cal Maggard had some things to say and if his power of speech forsook
him before he finished it was better not to make the start. These
chances he was calculating, and after Rowlett had turned his back, the
man in the bed opened his eyes and experimented with the one word,
"Bas!"

He found that the monosyllable not only sounded clear, but had the quiet
and determined quality of tone at which he had striven, and as it
sounded the other wheeled, flinching as if the word had been a bullet.

But at once he was back by the bed, and Maggard's estimate of him as a
master of perfidy mounted to admiration, for the passion clouds had in
that flash of time been swept from his eyes and left them disguised
again with solicitude and friendliness.

"By God, Cal!" The exclamation bore a counterfeited heartiness. "I
didn't skeercely suffer myself ter hope y'd ever speak out ergin!"

"I'm obleeged, Bas." Maggard's voice was faint but steady now. "Thar's a
thing I've got ter tell ye afore my stren'th gives out."

Beguiled by a seeming absence of suspicion into the belief that Maggard
had just then awakened to consciousness, Rowlett ensconced himself on
the bedside and nodded an unctuous sympathy. The other closed his eyes
and spoke calmly and without raising his lids.

"Ye forewarned me, Bas.... We both of us spoke out p'int blank ...
erbout ther gal ... an' we both went on bein' ... plum friendly."

"Thet war ther best way, Cal."

"Yes.... Then ye proffered ter safeguard me.... Ye didn't hev no need
ter imperil yoreself ... but ye _would_ hev hit so."

"I reckon ye'd hev done likewise."

"No. I misdoubts I wouldn't ... anyhow ... right from ther outset on you
didn't hev ter be friendly ter me ... but ye was."

"I loves fa'r mindedness," came the sanctimonious response.

A brief pause ensued while Maggard rested. He had yet some way to go,
and the last part of the conversation would be the hardest.

"Most like," he continued at last, "I'll die ... but I've got a little
bitty, slim chanst ter come through."

"I hopes so, Cal."

"An' ef I _does_, I calls on God in heaven ter witness thet afore ther
moon fulls ergin ... I'm a-goin' ter _kill_--som