“Bill Kearny never went back on a pal, son, an' when I quit you I want you to say, 'Well, Tom Gibbons, he never went back on a pal nuther.' An' when you come to cash in, you want to have our godson say, 'An' Bob Sangster, too--he never went back on a pal.' Cut out the crooked work, son. Nobody has anythin' on you yet--start straight an' raise this boy straight, an' if ever you spot him showin' signs o' breakin' away from the reservation, just you remind him that a woman an' two men died to make a man outer him. That's all. I ain't goin' to try to talk no more.” At midnight The Worst Bad Man was very weak. He swayed and staggered and stopped every few hundred yards to rest, but he would not give up the baby. “I'll last till sun-up,” he told himself; “I got to. I ain't the quittin' kind.” About two o'clock in the morning the moon came out; from somewhere in the distance a coyote gave tongue, and The Worst Bad Man shivered a little. At three o'clock they came out of the dry salt lake into the sands again, and The Youngest Bad Man held out his arms for the baby. “He needs grub mighty bad,” was what The Worst Bad Man tried to say, but the words came only as an unintelligible mumble. There had been no sage on the dry lake and they had been unable to make a fire. For two hours the baby had been whimpering with hunger and cold. The Worst Bad Man slipped out of his pack, gathered some dry sagebrush and lit a roaring fire, while his youthful companion ministered to the baby. And when Bob Sang-ster had finished The Worst Bad Man smoothed a two-foot area in the sand, and by the light of the campfire he wrote with his finger the words that he could not speak: “You carry baby. I'm good two three miles more with pack. I leave you twelve miles from New Jerusalem. Don't lay up today keep moving put baby half rations savvy.” The Youngest Bad Man nodded. When dawn began to show in the east they resumed the journey. After the first mile, The Worst Bad Man gave signs that the end was coming very soon. He fell more frequently, barking his hands and knees, filling his mouth and eyes with sand, tearing his flesh in the catclaws. Weary, monotonous gasps came from his constricted throat, but still he staggered along, although his strength had been gone for hours. He was traveling on his nerve now. Slowly the dawnlight crept over the desert, softening with its magic beauty the harsh empire of death. The Worst Bad Man saw the rosy glow lighting up the saturnine face of the witch of Old Woman Mountain, and was content. He had promised himself to last till dawn. He had kept his word.