"I didn't say that he was dead." "Then he ain't dead?" "No." "How close to it is he?" "There's a good chance for him to recover. I have him hidden in a cave in the Gap." Yuma reflected on the things that he'd been told. He muttered half aloud and then quite suddenly went berserk. He snatched off his hat, whirled it about his head several times, then threw it on the ground. He jumped on it with both feet while he shouted at the top of his voice. His face was livid with blind rage and fury. He swore with the sincerity of a hen with fresh-hatched chicks and the vocabulary of a mule skinner. He called himself an addleheaded jackass and a crackbrained fool in Mexican as well as English. He berated his bungling, fumbling, thoughtless notions and cursed himself for trying to help Penny by the "loco" means he'd used. He ranted, raved, and raged because he'd taken blame that properly belonged to a double-dyed, limp-brained, stone-faced, soulless old son of a three-tongued rattler, meaning Bryant Cavendish. He declared with rare vehemence that Bryant deserved boiling in hot coal oil, then skinning alive. Before he ran out of things to say, his breath gave out and he was forced to stop and gasp. His face was red, his eyes were bloodshot from emotion. He grabbed the front of the Lone Ranger's shirt in one huge hand. "Listen," he said breathlessly, "listen tuh me. I lied when I said I was the leader o' them murderin' skunks an' cattle rustlers. It's Bryant that's the leader. I only thought tuh--" "I know, Yuma," the Lone Ranger interrupted. "You didn't want Bryant to be taken away from Penelope because he alone could safeguard her." Yuma still clutched the masked man's shirt. It happened that his hand had closed over the breast pocket, and in that pocket rested the Texas Ranger badge. "I came for you," the Lone Ranger went on, "because it is you that Penelope needs." "She needs me?" repeated Yuma eagerly. And then in a voice filled with woe, "Aw-w, that ain't so. I know the way she acted tuh me. If I go around where she is, she'll box my ears down." "I think she's changed her mind about a lot of things since she saw the document her uncle wanted signed. You come along with me, Yuma--you're needed badly." "Wish't they was somethin' I could do tuh put them crooks all where they belong," said Yuma wistfully. "Of course I c'n jest shoot Bryant when I git tuh him, an' finish what's already started." "No, you're not going to shoot Bryant Cavendish; you're a witness against him." "Huh?" "He tried to kill you. You'll go to law and charge him with attempted murder." "Me? Go tuh law?" asked Yuma with an amazed look. The masked man nodded. "Yuh--yuh mean," said the cowboy, still unable to fully comprehend, "I'm tuh go an' report that he shot at me, an' ask that he be judged fer it?" "Right."