I waited to see no more, but rushed from the room out in the street. I had no conception of the time we had spent together, but it must have been hours and hours, for the streets were deserted and empty. I judged it to be long after midnight. For a while I walked aimlessly about, seeking to calm and rid myself of a portion of my horror. Eventually pride and a sense of affectionate pity for Rearton returned. Maybe it was all a vision,—the last as false and unreal as the first! Though I tried to convince myself of this, it was only by the strongest exertion of will that I was enabled to mount the flight of stairs that led to my friend's apartments. I listened in front of the door for an instant. No sound came from within. With a hand that trembled violently, I pushed it open and entered the room. There on the floor were Rearton and the man,—now the victim of his victim. Rear-ton's teeth had torn his face and breast in a shocking manner, and their last fatal hold was at his throat, on which they were firmly set. Both were dead. About the room the broken furniture gave every evidence of a frightful and prolonged struggle. HOW MR. RATHBURN WAS BROUGHT IN RATHBURN paced the room with noiseless tread, now and then stopping to look at the tossing figure of the boy upon the cot or to listen to the words he spoke in his delirium. Once he thought he caught the sound of hoofs upon the trail and he halted abruptly as his hand stole beneath the tails of his long English coat. Mr. Rathburn's nerves were unstrung by the strain imposed upon them by recent and painful events. As he had expressed it to himself half a hundred times that day, “The gentleman who brings me in, whether it's afoot or in a pine box, goes just five thousand dollars to the good,” and each time his thoughts reverted to the powerful inducement the general public had to “bring him in,” his hand had stolen beneath the tails of his long English coat; and the comfort he derived from so doing had enabled him to say, “It won't be the first who tries nor the first six who try, but the seventh gets the pot.” Mr. Rathburn had left Denver the morning previous in great and pressing haste, and with a careful avoidance of human kind. He had never been a social man and the reward of five thousand dollars that was “out” for the man who would bring him in only served to intensify the natural austerity of his character. The difficulties that beset Mr. Rathburn arose indirectly out of a quiet little game of poker when the stakes had been high, and when the game had ended (two gentlemen going broke), the tempers of all concerned had been even higher than the stakes. Mr. Rathburn's honor had been called into question. Certain remarks, chiefly notable because of their extreme brevity and almost brutal frankness, had been directed at him. What followed was hasty and unpremeditated.