“How about Phil?” Neil suggested. “That’s right. One of us has ce’tainly got to go back and attend to him.” “You and Neil go back. I’ll follow up this gentleman who is escaping,” the ranger said. And so it was arranged. The two men returned from their grim work of justice to the place where the outlaw chief had been left. His eyes lit feebly at sight of them. “What news, York?” he asked. “Reilly and Hardman are killed. How are you feelin’, cap?” The cow-puncher knelt beside the dying outlaw and put an arm under his head. “Shot all to pieces, boy. No, I got no time to have you play doctor with me.” He turned to Collins with a gleam of his unconquerable spirit. “You came pretty near making a clean round-up, sheriff. I’m the fourth to be put out of business. You’d ought to be content with that. Let York here go.” “I can’t do that, but I’ll do my best to see he gets off light.” “I got him into this, sheriff. He was all right before he knew me. I want him to get a chance now.” “I wish I could give him a pardon, but I can’t do it. I’ll see the governor for him though.” The wounded man spoke to Collins alone for a few minutes, then began to wander in his mind He babbled feebly of childhood days back in his Kentucky home. The word most often on his lips was “Mother.” So, with his head resting on Neil’s arm and his hand in that of his friend, he slipped away to the Great Beyond. CHAPTER XXII. FOR A GOOD REASON The young ladies, following the custom of Arizona in summer, were riding by the light of the stars to avoid the heat of the day. They rode leisurely, chatting as their ponies paced side by side. For though they were cousins they were getting acquainted with each other for the first time. Both of them found this a delightful process, not the less so because they were temperamentally very different. Each of them knew already that they were going to be great friends. They had exchanged the histories of their lives, lying awake girl fashion to talk into the small hours, each omitting certain passages, however, that had to do with two men who were at that moment approaching nearer every minute to them. Bucky O’Connor and Sheriff Collins were returning to the Rocking Chair Ranch from Epitaph, where they had just been to deposit twenty-seven thousand dollars and a prisoner by the name of Chaves. Just at the point where the road climbed from the plains and reached the summit of the first stiff hill the two parties met and passed. The ranger and the sheriff reined in simultaneously. Yet a moment and all four of them were talking at once. They turned toward the ranch, Bucky and Frances leading the way. Alice, riding beside her lover in the darkness, found the defenses upon which she had relied begin to fail her. Nevertheless, she summoned them to her support and met him full armed with the evasions and complexities of her sex. “This _is_ a surprise, Mr. Collins,” he was informed in her best society voice. “And a pleasure?”