Back in the corner of the Keno, watched over only by his dog, the big-hearted Meshackatee was sleeping across the table, unsuspecting of the storm about to burst. In their rage at Isham's death the Texans might shoot him down, or have the officers take him in charge; and the devilish spite of Miz Zoolah was still to be reckoned with--she, too, might hire him killed for revenge. Hall turned his horse towards town and went galloping up a side street just as the first Texans, riding alongside the wagon, came shouting the news up the street. There was a rush of curious people and the saloon was deserted when Hall burst in through the back door. Even the bar-keepers were gone, and if Meshackatee had gone with them----Hall stepped to the swinging doors. The wagon had stopped in the middle of the street and the people were swarming around it; and up on the broad platform, now cleared of its wheat, Miz Zoolah was standing above Isham. "He's dead!" she announced, as men scrambled to lift the body, "leave 'im alone, I tell ye; he's dead. But I know who killed him, and if there's an ounce of manhood in any of you, you'll ride till you ketch Hall McIvor. He's riding a blue roan and----" Hall ducked through the door and made a run out the back way, but as he mounted he took a second thought. He had not killed Isham Scarborough, and it could not be proved--there was no one to stand witness against him; but if he fled for the hills and was pursued and brought back the fact would be used against him. And if the Texans led the posse, as they undoubtedly would, it would end in a fight to the death. He reined his horse back and rode straight to the court-house, where he gave himself up to the sheriff. CHAPTER XXVIII THE HONOR OF THE McIVORS Isham Scarborough was dead but the Scarborough gang still lived, and soon what had long been suspected was proven--Miz Zoolah had been its brains. Isham had put up the bluff, the loud talk and the rough work, but she had done the thinking which had directed his coarse violence along the ways of destruction and death. And, since she was its head, the gang still lived on, to carry out her will to the end. She it was who had laid the man-trap at Geronimo, to net the last of her husband's enemies; and though Hall was in jail and so safe from open violence, even there he felt the breath of her hatred. She appeared at his cell door, to positively identify him before she swore out a warrant against him; and the look in her pale eyes was as baleful as a rattlesnake's when it raises its head to strike. "That's the man," she said, "I'd swear to him anywhere. He's the man that killed my husband." And before the Justice of the Peace, when he was arraigned for examination, she accused him with passionate hate.