He explored the blood-caked shirt-front and lifted a shoulder-point in a little gesture of fatalistic resignation. There was a .44 hole in Rutter’s chest. How he had ridden this far was the marvel! The Ranger squatted there broodingly, watching mechanically along the back-trail, in case the Indians appeared. “Want me to--sign a paper?” At the painful whisper, Ware’s Kid looked down curiously into Rutter’s grim-lined face. “Shore,” he nodded, after a moment, thinking to humor a delirious man. “If it’ll ease yuh.” “Knowed yuh--had the deadwood on me--when yuh--found my knife! But I --wasn’t goin’ to--let yuh see Carwell ag’in--ever! Yuh tried to--make out yuh never--suspicioned. But I knowed! I’d’ve got yuh--’fore mawnin’. Dam’ near got yuh--yeste’day mawnin’--at the Castle. Seen yuh--pokin’ round--pick up somethin’--skeered me an’--I whanged away. Hadn’t missed--wouldn’t be here. ’Twas on the--cards--I reckon.” He stopped wearily, breathing in labored wheezes. Ware’s Kid squatted beside him, staring down with expressionless face. Suddenly Rutter’s wheezes became louder, quicker. After a moment the Ranger understood that it was horrible laughter. “Reckon my gal--will do her travelin’--now. Always after me--to sell out. I done for Eph Carson--’count o’ that. None o’ that--money was mine. All his’n. I wanted it. I----” His voice trailed off into incoherent mumbling. Ware’s Kid bethought himself suddenly of what Rutter had said about signing a paper. He fumbled in his jumper pocket and found a letter of the adjutant general, the letter which had summoned him to Austin three months ago and so had brought him, indirectly, to sit here tonight. A stub of pencil was there, too. “A’ right!” he snapped. “Sign the paper!” He supported the murderer’s head and shoulders and crooked his knee so that Rutter could lay the paper upon it. It was slow, painful work, but at last he held the curt scrawl up in the moonlight and painfully spelled it out: Dell spreen never killed eph Carson I done it and robbed him--Simeon Rutter. Presently Rutter died--without pain, apparently. Ware’s Kid rolled a cigarette and lit it, staring blankly straight ahead. “He shore fooled me!” he grunted admiringly. “He shore did! An’ like to killed me twict! At the Castle an’ tonight. He never took me for no Injun. He was aimin’ to down me. Just fools’ luck I’m here, alive an’ kickin’, an’ with this-here paper.” He got up, thinking to ride for Carwell and tell his story: show the confession. Suddenly he thought of the girl, the wistful-eyed, sad-faced girl at the O-Bar ranch-house. He squatted again and made another cigarette.