“Pool,” she said, with something of motherly tenderness in her voice, “it hurt me to believe that you’d gone wrong; and to find you here hurts me more than that did. Git out of it, son; leave this crowd of villains, and try to be an honest man. I’m a pore old woman, but I’ll work my finger nails off to git ye a start in some honest way, if you’ll jes’ make a try to be honest.” “Take her away,” commanded Snaky Pete, irritated and wrathful. She suffered herself to be led away, broken in spirit now, and sobbing. For the moment, at least, she was no longer Pizen Jane, but a heartbroken old woman. The stir caused by the return of the main body of desperadoes caused the feud between Pool Clayton and Tom Molloy to be forgotten, or overlooked, for a time. The astonishing claim of Pizen Jane, that Pool Clayton was her son and that Snaky Pete was her recreant husband, was enough of itself to make the outlaws forget that Clayton and Molloy had fought, and were threatening bloody things against each other. Snaky Pete walked nervously about, giving orders in a tone of irritation which masked somewhat the real feelings of his heart. He observed the prisoner, old Nick Nomad, then he looked at Pool Clayton, who had withdrawn to a distance, both from his mother and from Snaky Pete, his stepfather. Molloy had slunk away, and was busily engaged in making himself inconspicuous. Snaky Pete grew wrathful and murderously vindictive. “Here!” he snarled, speaking to Pool Clayton. “You ain’t done yit what I told ye to!” He swung his hand toward Nick Nomad, as he thus spoke to the young would-be outlaw. “I told you to shoot that old skunk, and git him out of the way, and you ain’t done it!” Pool Clayton came forward when Snaky Pete shouted to him a second time. “You needn’t think that you and yer mother kin come here and run this camp! If she makes trouble, I’ll lay a stingin’ quirt across her back, and you’ve got to mind me, er I’ll put a bullet through your head instanter, and git rid of ye!” Pool Clayton stood before him, trembling. “Do ye hear?” “Yes,” said Clayton. “Then finish up the job that you wouldn’t do when I first tole ye to; put a bullet through that ole fool instanter. He’s a pard of Buffalo Bill, and out he goes. We can’t keep him, and we can’t afford to let him go.” Old Nick Nomad never changed countenance as he heard these brutal orders. “Buffler,” he had said once, talking with his old border pard, “I allus tries ter live, so that when ther eend comes I can face it square and honest. My hand has been ag’inst wrong, and I has tried to keep it frum doin’ wrong.” In that confident assurance old Nick Nomad lived, and in it he could now die, if he had to.