Ware’s Kid eyed him steadily. He knew that only Johnson’s arrival had kept his assailant from putting another bullet into him as he lay unconscious. He leaned back wearily in the seat. Johnson stretched his bowed legs comfortably and took off his Stetson. “Wisht I had a chaw,” he grumbled. “Got the makin’s.” Ware’s Kid fumbled in his jumper pocket. “Don’t use her thet-a-way. I neveh could learn to smoke, some way.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes. And the Ranger, watching him, turned suddenly cold all over. For upon the brown, sinewy neck that had been always hidden heretofore by the silken neckerchief, shone a long white scar that stretched evenly three quarters of the way around it. A stocky, dark-faced, dark-eyed man, with a white scar circling evenly around his neck--so Simeon Rutter and the O-Bar hands had described Dell Spreen. True, they had seen him clean-shaven, and, believing him guilty of murder, they remembered his features and eyes as murderous. But there was no doubt about it--Dell Spreen sat there across from him with closed eyes. And to Dell Spreen he owed his life that night! “Dell Spreen!” he called in a low voice. Bos’ Johnson moved like a cat, to half-draw his Colt. Then he saw the derringer that covered him with twin barrels. For an instant he hesitated, then shoved the Colt back into its holster and slumped. “So you-all come afteh _me_,” he said. “I been lookin’ fer somebody to show up. That’s why I got me a job as dep’ty. Figgered whoever come’d spill his tale in the office an’, seein’ me wearin’ a badge, wouldn’t suspicion me. Specially since I neveh used my own name in the O-Bar country. But you-all shore fooled me.” “Hate like hell to do it!” Ware’s Kid wriggled miserably. “But I’m a Ranger. Do anything I can to help yuh, Johnson. Much as I’d do fer my own blood kin. But I got to take yuh back.” “I ain’t blamin’ you-all. But--might’s well shoot me right now as to put me up ’fore a jury in that country. Ever’thing’s ag’inst me--specially bein’ a strangeh. That’s why I high-tailed it, soon’s I heerd he’d been found. “I ain’t denyin’ I went to the O-Bar fig-gerin’ I’d mebbe have to kill Carson. I was goin’ to git back the money he stole off’n my brotheh an’ sisteh. Goin’ to git it back or try the case before Jedge Colt. But if I’d killed him, it’d been from the front. He’d have been give a chanct to fill his hand.” “Yuh--yuh mean yuh never killed him?” cried Ware’s Kid. Then the old surge of hope died. Of course Johnson would say that. “D’ you-all figger me that-a-way? Knowin’ no more about me than you do?” Johnson asked. Slowly, the Ranger shook his head.