Another blotch of light, a bigger one, showed in the young day. It was an opened door, and a deep chest gave forth an answer to his cry. Dick Worth stepped from the threshold of his home and ran to the gate to see better this crazy figure which lurched toward him. It was a man on foot, hatless, his face gray like the sky above, hair tousled, eyes glowing red. He stumbled to the fence and leaned there for support, holding something forward, something limp and bloodstained. "Dick--it's Kelly's money belt--Rhues--he killed him-- He shot me--he's got the money--on him--he's swinging off west--two of 'em-- Their horses are--all in-- He--he shot Kelly because--I wouldn't take--a drink--he--and I need--a--drink--" He slumped down against the fence. After an uncertain age VB swam back from that mental vacuity to reality. He saw, first, that the Captain was beside him, standing there breathing loudly, eyes closed, sobbing low at every heave of his lungs. A quavering moan made its way to the boy's throat and he moved over, reaching out groping arms for the stallion's lowered head. "Captain!" he moaned. "Oh, boy--it was our last ride--I can never--ask you to carry me--again." He hugged the face closer to his. Then he heard a man's voice saying: "Here, VB, take this--it'll brace you up!" He turned his face slowly, for the strength that remained was far from certain. His wound was on fire, every nerve of his body laid bare. His will to do began and ended with wanting to hold that horse's head close. He was as a child, stripped of every effect that the experiences of his life could have had. He was weak, broken, unwittingly searching for a way back to strength. He turned his head halfway and beheld the man stooping beside him who held in his hands a bottle, uncorked, and from it came a strong odor. The boy dilated his nostrils and drew great breaths laden with the fumes of the stuff. A new life came into his eyes. They shone, they sparkled. Activity came to those bare nerves, and they raised their demands. He opened his mouth and let the odor he inhaled play across that place in his throat. The smell went on out through his arteries, through his veins, along the nerves to the ends of his being, to the core of his soul! He was down, down in the depths, his very ego crying for the stimulant, for something to help it come back. He coaxed along that yearning, let it rise to its fullest. Then he raised his eyes to meet the concerned gaze of the other man. And the man saw in those eyes a look that made him sway back, that made him open his lips in surprise. "To hell with that stuff!" the boy screamed. "To hell with it! To hell--_to hell!_ It belongs there! It--it killed the Captain!"