till
wandering with incoherent mutterings, was a non-voting member. He,
Tom Morse, must be judge and jury. He must, if the prisoner were
convicted, play a much more horrible role. In the silence of the cold
sub-Arctic night he fought the battle out while automatically he
waited on his friend.

West snored on the other side of the fire.

CHAPTER XXXVII

NEAR THE END OF A LONG CROOKED TRAIL

When West awoke, Morse was whittling on a piece of wood with his sharp
hunting-knife. It was a flat section from a spruce, and it had been
trimmed with an axe till it resembled a shake in shape.

The outlaw's curiosity overcame his sullenness at last. It made him
jumpy, anyhow, to sit there in silence except for the muttering of the
sick man.

"Whajamakin'?" he demanded.

Morse said nothing. He smoothed the board to his satisfaction, then
began lettering on it with a pencil.

"I said whajadoin'," growled West, after another silence.

The special constable looked at him, and in the young man's eyes there
was something that made the murderer shiver.

"I'm making a tombstone."

"What?" West felt a drench of ice at his heart.

"A marker for a grave."

"For--for him? Maybe he won't die. Looks better to me. Fever ain't so
high."

"It's not for him."

West moistened his dry lips with his tongue. "You will have yore li'l
joke, eh? Who's it for?"

"For you."

"For me?" The man's fear burst from him in a shriek. "Whajamean for
me?"

From the lettering Morse read aloud. "'Bully West, Executed, Some
Time late in March, 1875.'" And beneath it, "'May God Have Mercy on
His Soul.'"

Tiny beads of sweat gathered on the convict's clammy forehead. "You
aimin' to--to murder me?" he asked hoarsely.

"To execute you."

"With--without a trial? My God, you can't do that! I got a right to a
trial."

"You've been tried--and condemned. I settled all that in the night."

"But--it ain't legal. Goddlemighty, you got no _right_ to act
thataway. All you can do is to take me back to the courts." The heavy
voice broke again to a scream.

Morse slipped the hunting-knife back into its case. He looked steadily
at the prisoner. In his eyes there was no anger, no hatred. But back
of the sadness in them was an implacable resolution.

"Courts and the law are a thousand miles away," he said. "You know
your crimes. You murdered Tim Kelly treacherously. You planned to
spoil an innocent girl's life by driving her to worse than death.