"Come on--let's move. I'm fair dead for sleep." "Just a minute!" said Anastacio. "I want to call your attention to the big dust off in the north. I've been watching it half an hour. That dust, if I'm not mistaken, is the Bar Cross coming; they've heard the news!" "So, Mr. Lisner, you hadn't a chance to get by with it," said Pringle slowly and thoughtfully. "If I hadn't balked you, the Barelas stood ready; if the Barelas failed, yonder big dust was on the way; half your own posse would have turned on you for half a guess at the truth. It's a real nice little world--and it hates a lie. A good many people lay their fine-drawn plans, but they mostly don't come off! Men are but dust, they tell us. Magnificent dust! This nice little old world of ours, in the long run, is going right. You can't beat the Game! Once, yes--or twice--not in the long run. The Percentage is all against you. You can't beat the Game!" "It's up to you, Sheriff," said Anastacio briskly. "I can turn you over to the Bar Cross outfit and they'll hang you now; or I can turn you over to the Barelas and you will be hung later. Dick Marr was your friend! Take your choice. You go on down, Pringle, while the sheriff is looking over the relative advantages of the two propositions. I think Miss Vorhis may have something to say to you." * * * * * She came to meet him; Foy and the Major waited by the horses. "John!" she said. "Faithful John!" She sought his hands. "There now, honey--don't take on so! Don't! It's all right! You know what the poet says: "Cast your bread upon the waters And you may live to say: 'Oh, how I wish I had the crust That once I threw away!'" Her throat was pulsing swiftly; her eyes were brimming with tears, bruised for lost sleep. "Dearest and kindest friend! When I think what you have done for me--that you faced shame worse than death--guarded by unprovable honor--John! John!" "Why, you mustn't, honey--you mustn't do that! Why, Stella, you're crying--for me! You mustn't do that, Little Next Door!" "If you had been killed, taking Chris--or after you gave him up--no one but me would have ever believed but that you meant it." "But you believed, Stella?" "Oh, I knew! I knew!" "Even when you first heard of it?" "I never doubted you--not one instant! I knew what you meant to do. You knew I loved him. The led horse was for you. I thought Chris would be gone. Why, John Wesley, I have known you all my life! You couldn't do that! You couldn't! Oh, kiss me, kiss me--faithful John!" But he bent and kissed her hands--lest, looking into his eyes, she should read in the book of his life one long, long chapter--that bore her name. THE END THE COME ON