He was just starting in then, and I’d heard he was a smart fellow. I told him of the fifteen hundred dollars dust I had hid in my shack. He was to find Dowling. Dowling ’d gone up into Wyoming. Westcott was to get him down here as a witness. And the damned coyote was to have my fifteen hundred.”

Again the racking cough, and his voice trailed off in a choking struggle for breath. He was shrieking when he continued.

“And Westcott took the money! Took it out of my shack, and never came near me again. Left me to die. They’d ha’ hung me, sure, if some of the jury hadn’t believed Jim Texas lied.”

The deputy’s face was twisted with pity and shame; the man was so horribly broken.

25“They’s a flask in the pocket o’ that coat,” he said. “Take a pull; it’ll brace you up.”

25

“I don’t want it,” Barker snarled. “It chokes me more.”

He had drawn the coat about him, the sleeves tied across his chest.

“And Westcott went back on me this time, too.” He took up the pitiful tale again. “He couldn’t be satisfied, the devil, with what he’d done. He had to do it over. But what for? What for? I say? I never did him dirt.”

The deputy gave a start of surprise.

“Why Westcott got—” he began, then pity kept him silent. If Barker had not guessed he would not tell him.

“Westcott ... hell!” He spat savagely out upon the desert, shaking his head with pity, as he glanced again at the huddled figure.

“Westcott’s a damned side-winder,” he muttered.

They were descending into an arroyo, once the bed of a creek; dry, now, for more than a year. The road crossed it, here.

“We’re going to get our weather, quick,” the deputy said, as he noticed that the bottom of the arroyo held tiny pools of water.

Even as he spoke a little stream came trickling down.

26“It’s us for the level! Quick!” he shouted, urging the bay.

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