“He’s went away and left us In the prime of his young life. He’s gone from this here vale of tears With all it’s joy and strife. No more we’ll see his banty legs, Nor hear him tell a lie. He’s vanished from old Paradise, And we never said good-by.” “That’s a mighty pretty thing, Muley,” applauds Pole Cat. “Can’t yuh think of something nice to say for old man Whittaker?” “The rest of you fellers stand back from Pole Cat and Harelip, and old man Whittaker will say something for himself,” states a voice at the door, and there stands the old man, with a shotgun which he levels at Pole Cat and Harelip. The crowd obeys. Bill McFee’s legs get so weak that he sets down on the bar-rail where he gasps like a fish out of water. “You danged pair of dynamiters!” snaps the old man. “With the shadder of the gallows staring me in the eye, and Chuck Warner’s ghost haunting my dreams, I comes back to show yuh that your dastardly deed failed. When yuh blowed up that jail yuh didn’t get me and Scenery. Sabe? Shut up!” he snaps, as Harelip starts to say something. “Don’t try to deny it, Harelip. I can prove it by the heero what let us out. There he stands, gents. Henry Clay Peck. He busted the lock and liberated——” The crowd turns to look at me, but I don’t seem to be the point of interest at that. They looks right past me. Old man Whittaker’s gun slips from his hands, and clangs on the floor. I twists my neck and looks behind me, and there stands Chuck. He yawns and leans against the pool-table. “Well,” says Chuck, in a dry voice, “ain’t somebody going to set ’em up? Sleeping in timothy makes a feller dry.” Bill McFee looks at Chuck and back at Whittaker and the tears of joy runs out of his eyes. Whittaker leans against the door and tries to laugh, but he can’t. “Haw!” says Harelip, but that’s as far as he got. Chuck ambles up to the bar, and looks ’em over. “Holy henhawks!” he snorts. “Have yuh all gone loco?” “Ain’t—ain’t yuh dead, Chuck?” stutters the old man. “Almost—from thirst.” Bill McFee has been looking, steady-like, at me for some time, and when he gets on his feet he sort of starts edging toward me. I edges the other way, sort of unconcerned-like, and bumps into Calamity. He’s got a billiard cue in his hands. “Henry,” he whispers, “you lied to me.” I nods, kicks his feet out from under him, and goes out of that back door like a shot. I races around to the front, and runs into something. They’re grouped, and I’m into ’em before I has time to think. There’s the two Mudgett sisters, Hulda Peterson, Annie Schmidt, Mrs. Benson, Maggie Smith, Clarice Chaffin and the widder Saunders. The male members of the vigilance committee is Abe Mudgett and Breezy Benson. “We’ve been waiting for you, Henry,” states the widder, sort of belligerent-like, and the chorus sings the last four words. * * * * *