h indecision at the lawyer and at Sam sitting high
above the crowd on the barrel.

"Certainly," said Hickory. "We'd all like to hear the will, although I
suppose it's none of our business."

The lawyer made no comment on this remark, but bowing to the
assemblage, unfolded a paper and read it.

Mr. Buller left all his property to his nephew in the East with the
exception of fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks, then deposited in
the Coyote County Bank at Salt Lick. The testator had reason to suspect
that a desperado named Hickory Sam (real name or designation unknown)
had designs on the testator's life. In case these designs were
successful, the whole of this money was to go to the person or persons
who succeeded in removing this scoundrel from the face of the earth. In
case the Sheriff arrested the said Hickory Sam and he was tried and
executed, the money was to be divided between the Sheriff and those who
assisted in the capture. If any man on his own responsibility shot and
killed the said Hickory Sam, the fifty thousand dollars became his sole
property, and would be handed over to him by the bank manager, in whom
Mr. Buller expressed every confidence, as soon as the slayer of Hickory
Sam proved the deed to the satisfaction of the manager. In every case
the bank manager had full control of the disposal of the fund, and
could pay it in bulk, or divide it among those who had succeeded in
eliminating from a contentious world one of its most contentious
members.

The amazed silence which followed the reading of this document was
broken by a loud jeering and defiant laugh from the man on the barrel.
He laughed long, but no one joined him, and, as he noticed this, his
hilarity died down, being in a measure forced and mechanical. The
lawyer methodically folded up his papers. As some of the jury glanced
down at the face of the dead man who had originated this financial
scheme of _post mortem_ vengeance, they almost fancied they saw a
malicious leer about the half-open eyes and lips. An awed whisper ran
round the assemblage. Each man said to the other under his breath:
"Fif--ty--thous--and--dollars," as if the dwelling on each syllable
made the total seem larger. The same thought was in every man's mind; a
clean, cool little fortune merely for the crooking of a forefinger and
the correct levelling of a pistol barrel.

The lawyer had silently taken his departure. Sam, soberer than he had
been for many days, slid down from