oon as they knew he had left Salt Lick. The prize was too great for
no effort to be made to secure it.

There is an enemy before whom the strongest and bravest man must
succumb; that enemy is sleeplessness. When daylight found the
desperado, he had not closed an eye all night. His nerve was gone, and,
perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt a thrill of fear. The
emptiness of the prairie, which should have encouraged him, struck a
chill of loneliness into him, and he longed for the sight of a man,
even though he might have to fight him when he approached. He must have
a comrade, he said to himself, if he could find any human being in
straits as terrible as his own, some one who would keep watch and watch
with him through the night; but the comrade must either be ignorant of
the weight of money that hung over the desperado's head, or there must
be a price on his own. An innocent man would not see the use of keeping
such strict watch; a guilty man, on learning the circumstances of the
case, would sell Sam's life to purchase his own freedom. Fifty thousand
dollars, in the desperado's mind, would do anything, and yet he
himself, of all the sixty million people in the land, was the only one
who could not earn it! A comrade, then, innocent or guilty, was
impossible, and yet was absolutely necessary if the wanderer was to
have sleep.

The horse was in distress through lack of water, and Sam himself was
both hungry and thirsty. His next halting-place must be near a stream,
yet perhaps his safety during the first night was due to the fact that
his pursuers would naturally have looked for him near some watercourse,
and not on the open prairie.

Ten days later, Mike Davlin was awakened at three in the morning, to
find standing by his bed a gaunt, haggard living skeleton, holding a
candle in one hand, and pointing a cocked revolver at Mike's head with
the other.

"Get up," said the apparition hoarsely, "and get me something to eat
and drink. Drink first, and be quick about it. Make no noise. Is there
anybody else in the house?"

"No," said Mike, shivering. "You wait here, Sam, and I'll bring you
something. I thought you were among the Indians, or in Mexico, or in
the Bad Lands long ago."

"I'm in bad lands enough here. I'll go with you. I'm not going to let
you out of my sight, and no tricks, mind, or you know what will
happen."

"Surely you trust me, Sam," whined Mike, getting up.

"I don't trust any living man.