He looked over the works again. He was astonished to find how little of it he cared for personally. There remained not much more than the Westerner's outfit, when it was winnowed--four good horses, the buckboard, his saddle, clothes, his weapons, and the beautiful trotting horse. Billy could not let that go. The camp outfit they could have and welcome. He kicked the rubber stamper into space, scattering potential literature about the landscape. Many things he hesitated over, but finally discarded. The heap was not very large when all was told. He began to experiment with the buckboard. Billy was a master of the celebrated diamond hitch. After an hour's earnest work, he drew back triumphantly to observe to himself that all he wished to take with him was securely packed on the vehicle. Then he coupled in his grays, and led out the beautiful trotting horse. He was glad that he had lately paid the English groom his wages; which individual he remembered seeing, the night before, dead drunk in a corner. Billy made himself some coffee in the empty cookee's shack, and was ready to start. He did not know exactly where he would go; that was a matter of detail, but somewhere West in all probability--somewhere in Wyoming, where Jim Buckley was hidden up in the mountains, living a sane sort of a life, removed from the corroding influences of civilization. He did not realize that in this impatient shaking off of responsibility, he was little better than a moral coward. Even Billy's worst enemies would have denied the justice of that epithet. He climbed in, deliberately unwound the reins from the long brake handle, clucked to the horses, and took his way, whistling, down the narrow trail. The beautiful trotting horse followed gingerly, tossing his head. At the entrance to town, Billy's whistling suddenly ceased. The street was quite bare and silent. Not even from the Little Nugget saloon or the new dance hall came the faintest sound of human occupancy. A tenderfoot might have argued that this was indicative of deep sleep after last night's festivities, but Billy knew better. At seven o'clock in the morning, after excitement such as that of a few hours before, the normal ensuing pow-wow would still be raging unabated. He reached under the seat for his Winchester, the new 40-82 model of his prosperous days, and laid it softly across his lap, and caught the end of the long lash in his whip hand. Then he resumed his tune exactly where it had been broken off, looking neither to right nor left, and jogging along without the slightest appearance of haste or uneasiness. No one could have called Billy Knapp a coward at that moment. Near the first cabin the whistling broke off again. A little figure stumbled out into the deserted street, weeping and afraid. Billy pulled up. It was the Kid.