“Not that I know of, you haven’t.” “No? Jim, who killed that man near the women’s carts the night of the big run on the Colorado?” “I don’t know who killed him; I only know he was dead.” “Well, that man was after the trunk you thought that I had stolen. Rudabaugh wants that trunk. He sent his boldest man after it that night. I was a little ahead of him, that was all. You know what happened to him. Now you know who did it. Yes, you might say I stole Miss Lockhart’s trunk and put it in my wagon. But I stole it from Rudabaugh, not from her. What I said at the trial was true. Theft from her—why, good Heavens!” He suddenly spread out his hands. “I’m a killer now, Jim!” said he, his face strangely drawn by a smile that could not come to it. “I can’t turn back now. The man who says I ever was a friend of Rudabaugh is a liar, and a fool besides. I call that to you here. I will call it to your whole campful just the same.” “Them’s right strong words,” said Jim Nabours quietly. “I only listen because I more’n half believe you’re right. I can’t answer what you say. But why in hell didn’t you say all this at the trial?” “Trial! Who gave you any right to try a McMasters of Gonzales? I took what you-all gave me because I thought it might make it easier for me to stay away.” “Well, I don’t know what you mean by that.” “No; and I don’t know that I can make you understand. Let me say, I realized that my path and hers could never run together. “But you’re in the Indian Nations now. There are three hundred Comanches in here somewhere north of you that have come in from the Plains to visit with the Kiowas. That’s Yellow Hand’s band. If you meet those Comanches after what they surely will hear—why, I suppose, you might maybe be willing to have a good killer along with you. “I supposed maybe you’d be thankful to get this word in time. So, to that extent, you see, my path does once more run for a little way not far from hers. Maybe she’ll talk to me. I’m going to see. You can’t any of you stop me. You’ve all been ignorant fools. You deserve nothing.” “I used to read my Bible, in Sunday school,” said Nabours after a long silence. “I done read about that there, now, Rachel—was it?—same name, she had, as Cohen’s wife down to Gonzales, of the Golden Eagle Store. Now Jacob, he was a good cow hand, and he worked seven years night wrangling for said Rachel—maybe her name was Rebecca, I don’t know. Well, anyhow, I reckon, maybe it was all right about Jacob and the ranch boss. The trouble with me is, I got too damned many Jacobs along already in this here outfit. I wasn’t studying to take on no more. “Still, when the men hear about old Yellow Hand it’s more’n likely they’ll be glad to pick up a hand that can throw lead if he has to. Come on in. I won’t let nobody start nothing. We can dig into this further along.” * * * * *