't wonder! You're doing it d----d badly."

"Personate--YOU?" said the stranger, with staring eyes.

"Yes, ME," said Brooks quietly. "I am the only man who escaped from the
robbery that night at Heavy Tree Hill and who went home by the Overland
Coach."

The stranger stared, but recovered himself with a coarse laugh. "Oh,
well! we're on the same lay, it appears! Both after the widow--afore we
show up her husband."

"Not exactly," said Brooks, with his eyes fixed intently on the
stranger. "You are here to denounce a highwayman who is DEAD and escaped
justice. I am here to denounce one who is LIVING!--Stop! drop your hand;
it's no use. You thought you had to deal only with a woman to-night, and
your revolver isn't quite handy enough. There! down!--down! So! That'll
do."

"You can't prove it," said the man hoarsely.

"Fool! In your story to that woman you have given yourself away. There
were but two travelers attacked by the highwaymen. One was killed--I am
the other. Where do YOU come in? What witness can you be--except as
the highwayman that you are? Who is left to identify Wade but--his
accomplice!"

The man's suddenly whitened face made his unshaven beard seem to bristle
over his face like some wild animal's. "Well, ef you kalkilate to blow
me, you've got to blow Wade and his widder too. Jest you remember that,"
he said whiningly.

"I've thought of that," said Brooks coolly, "and I calculate that to
prevent it is worth about that hundred dollars you got from that
poor woman--and no more! Now, sit down at that table, and write as I
dictate."

The man looked at him in wonder, but obeyed.

"Write," said Brooks, "'I hereby certify that my accusations against the
late Pulaski Wade of Heavy Tree Hill are erroneous and groundless, and
the result of mistaken identity, especially in regard to any complicity
of his in the robbery of John Stubbs, deceased, and Henry Brooks, at
Heavy Tree Hill, on the night of the 13th August, 1854.'"

The man looked up with a repulsive smile. "Who's the fool now, Cap'n?
What's become of your hold on the widder, now?"

"Write!" said Brooks fiercely.

The sound of a pen hurriedly scratching paper followed this first
outburst of the quiet Brooks.

"Sign it," said Brooks.

The man signed it.

"Now go," said Brooks, unlocking the door, "but remember, if you should
ever be inclined to revisit Santa Ana, you will find ME living here
also."

The man slunk out of the door and into th