"Look here." The fellow raised himself painfully to an elbow, and fell back again. "I've got folks--and they don't know--about this scrape. They're square--and stand at the top--And they don't--it would just about-- For God sake, boys! Can't yuh see--how I feel? Nobody knows--about this. The sheriff didn't know--they came up on me in the dusk--and I fought. I wouldn't be taken--And it's my first bad break--because I got in with a bad--lot. They'll know something--happened, when they find--my horse. But they'll think--it's just drowning, if they don't find--me with a bullet or two-- Can't yuh _see_?" The Happy Family looked away across the coulee, and there were eyes that saw little of the yellow sunlight lying soft on the green hillside beyond. The world was not a good place; it was a grim, pitiless place, and--a man was dying, at their very feet. "But what about the rest oh the bunch?" croaked Happy Jack, true to his misanthropic nature, but exceeding husky as to voice. "They'll likely tell--" The dying man shook his head eagerly. "They won't; they're both--dead. One was killed--last night. The other when we first tried--to make a getaway. It--it's up to you, boys." Pink swallowed twice, and knelt beside him; the others remained standing, grouped like mourners around an open grave. "Yuh needn't worry about us," Pink said softly, "You can count on us, old boy. If you're dead sure a doctor--" "Drop it!" the other broke in harshly. "I don't want to live. And if I did, I couldn't. I ain't guessing--I know." They said little, after that. The wounded man seemed apathetically waiting for the end, and not inclined to further speech. Since they had tacitly promised to do as he wished, he lay with eyes half closed, watching idly the clouds drifting across to the skyline, hardly moving. The Happy Family sat listlessly around on convenient rocks, and watched the clouds also, and the yellow patches of foam racing down the muddy creek. Very quiet they were--so quiet that little, brown birds hopped close, and sang from swaying weeds almost within reach of them. The Happy Family listened dully to the songs, and waited. They did not even think to make a cigarette. The sun climbed higher and shone hotly down upon them. The dying man blinked at the glare, and Happy Jack took off his hat and tilted it over the face of the other, and asked him if he wouldn't like to be moved into the shade. "No matter--I'll be in the shade--soon enough," he returned quietly, and something gripped their throats to aching. His voice, they observed, was weaker than it had been. Weary took a long breath, and moved closer. "I wish you'd let us get help," he said, wistfully. It all seemed so horribly brutal, their sitting around him like that, waiting passively for him to die.