instead of one.
Hullo! Where are you going?"

"Going?" said Dunn hoarsely. "Going to the Carquinez Woods, by God! to
kill him before her. I'LL risk it, if you daren't. Let me succeed, and
you can hang ME and take the girl yourself."

"Sit down, sit down. Don't be a fool, Jim Dunn! You wouldn't keep the
saddle a hundred yards. Did I say I wouldn't help you? No. If you're
willing, we'll run the risk together, but it must be in my way. Hear me.
I'll drive you down there in a buggy before daylight, and we'll surprise
them in the cabin or as they leave the wood. But you must come as if
to arrest him for some offense--say, as an escaped Digger from the
Reservation, a dangerous tramp, a destroyer of public property in the
forests, a suspected road agent, or anything to give you the right
to hunt him. The exposure of him and Nellie, don't you see, must be
accidental. If he resists, kill him on the spot, and nobody'll blame
you; if he goes peaceably with you, and you once get him in Excelsior
jail, when the story gets out that he's taken the belle of Excelsior for
his squaw, if you'd the angels for your posse you couldn't keep the boys
from hanging him to the first tree. What's that?"

He walked to the window, and looked out cautiously.

"If it was the old man coming back and listening," he said, after a
pause, "it can't he helped. He'll hear it soon enough, if he don't
suspect something already."

"Look yer, Brace," broke in Dunn hoarsely. "D--d if I understand you or
you me. That dog Low has got to answer to ME, not to the LAW! I'll take
my risk of killing him, on sight and on the square. I don't reckon to
handicap myself with a warrant, and I am not going to draw him out with
a lie. You hear me? That's me all the time!"

"Then you calkilate to go down thar," said Brace contemptuously, "yell
out for him and Nellie, and let him line you on a rest from the first
tree as if you were a grizzly."

There was a pause. "What's that you were saying just now about a
bearskin he sold?" asked Dunn slowly, as if reflecting.

"He exchanged a bearskin," replied Brace, "with a single hole right over
the heart. He's a dead shot, I tell you."

"D--n his shooting," said Dunn. "I'm not thinking of that. How long ago
did he bring in that bearskin?"

"About two weeks, I reckon. Why?"

"Nothing! Look yer, Brace, you mean well--thar's my hand. I'll go down
with you there, but not as the sheriff. I'm going there as Jim Dunn, and
you can