wed open to
anybody that wanted to file on it.

"Well, the first man in the line was that old houn' that's layin' over
there with his toes turnin' cold. He filed on something, and when I
collared him about the money, he throwed me down. He said he sold the
numbers of land that didn't have no more copper on it than the palm of
his hand, and he said he'd just filed on the land that had the mines. He
showed me the papers; then he hopped his horse and come on down here."

"Incredible!" exclaimed the Governor.

"It was like him," Slavens corroborated. "He was a fox."

"I was goin' to take a shot at him," bragged Ten-Gallon, "but he was too
fur ahead of me. He had a faster horse than mine; and when I got here
last night he was already located on that claim. The copper mine's over
there where the old feller's tent stands, I tell you. They ain't enough
of it on this place to make a yard of wire."

"And you carried the story of Shanklin's deception and fraud to my son,"
nodded the Governor, fixing a severe eye on Ten-Gallon, "and he sought
the gambler for an explanation?"

"Well, he was goin' to haul the old crook over the fire," admitted
Ten-Gallon, somewhat uneasy under the old man's eye.

The Governor walked away from them again in his abstracted, self-centered
way, and stood looking off across the troubled landscape. Dr. Slavens
stepped to the tent to see how the patient rested, and Ten-Gallon gave
Agnes another wink.

"Comanche's dwindlin' down like a fire of shavin's," said he. "Nobody
couldn't git hurt there now, not even a crawlin' baby."

Indignation flushed her face at the man's familiarity. But she reasoned
that he was only doing the best he knew to be friendly.

"Are you still chief of police there?" she asked.

"I'm marshal now," he replied. "The police force has been done away with
by the mayor and council."

"Well then, I still have doubt about the safety of Comanche," she
observed, turning from him.

Governor Boyle approached Ten-Gallon and pointed to Hun Shanklin's
body.

"You must do something to get that carcass out of camp right away," he
said. "Isn't there a deputy coroner at Comanche?"

"The undertaker is," said Ten-Gallon, drawing back at the prospect of
having to lay hands on the body of the man whom he feared in death as he
had feared him in life.

"Send him over here," Governor Boyle directed.

Ten-Gallon departed on his mission, and the Governor took one of the
trodden blankets fr