"So I left them two here to eat at the expense o’ the territory till my return. It was the colonel got onto them fust—recognised ’em for old friends of a right celebrated danger to civilisation which his name was Farrell." "Ah!" said Apache Kid. "So I hear now, when I comes back, anyway," said the sheriff. "Then along comes Miss Pinkerton, and when they see her on the scene, well, why they reckon on feedin’ off this yere territory no more. The colonel is some annoyed that they did n’t wait on and try to hold up their story. I reckon they either had not figured on Miss P., or else had surmised she ’d not raise her voice ag’in’ your decoratin’ a rope. But I keep you from distractin’ them boys out there and they starts cheerin’ ag’in. After you ’ve kind o’ distributed them come back and see me. I ’m kind o’ stuck on you, Apache. I guess you ’ll make a good enough citizen yet—maybe you might be in the running yet for sheriff o’ Carson City within the next few years." But a renewed outbreak of the cheering brought a frown to Apache Kid’s face and sent him to the door speedily, with me at his heels. The sheriff opened the door and out stepped Apache Kid. The first breath of a shout from the crowd there he stopped in the middle. What his face spoke I do not know, being behind him; but his right thumb pointed over his shoulder, his left hand was at his lips, I think,—and the cry stopped. "Gentlemen," he said, and broke the cry that threatened again to rise with a raised hand; "the lady within"—he got to the core of his remark first—"has her own sorrow. We must think of her." You could hear the gruff "That’s what," and "That’s no lie," and "That’s talking," and see heads nodded to neighbour’s heads in the crowd. But the question was how to get away? Apache Kid stepped down to the street level and then, before we knew what was come to us we were clutched by willing hands and, shoulder high, headed a silent procession tramping in the dust out of ear-shot of the jail—that the woman within might not feel her sorrow more bitter and lonely hearing the cheers that were given to the men who had "wiped out the Farrell gang." So much the populace knew had happened. That much had leaked out, and the least that was expected of Apache Kid was that he would get out on some hotel verandah and allow himself to be gazed upon and cheered and make himself for a night an excuse for "celebration" and perhaps, also, in the speech that he must needs make, give some slight outline of how Farrell _got it_—to use (as Apache Kid would say) the phraseology of the country. *CHAPTER XXVI* _*Apache Kid Makes a Speech*_ There was a good deal of the spirit of Coriolanus in Apache Kid, and he knew the worth of all this laudation.