at's me is hers. I ain't got a thought without her. Man,
you don't know what it is to love my Jessie. You can't, 'cos your
love's not honest. You've taken her same as you'd take any woman for
your pleasure. If I was dead, would you marry her? No, never, never,
never. She's a pastime to you, and when you've done with her you'd
turn her right out on this prairie to herd with the cattle, if ther'
wasn't anywher' else for her to go." Then his voice suddenly rose and
his fury supervened again. "God!" he cried fiercely. "Give me back my
wife. You're a thief. Give her back to me, I say. She's mine, d'you
understand--mine!"

Not for an instant did the smile on James' face relax. Maybe it became
more set, and his lips, perhaps, tightened, but the smile was there,
hard, unyielding in its very setness. And when Scipio's appeal came to
an end he spoke with an underlying harshness that did not carry its
way to the little man's distracted brain.

"She wouldn't go back to you, even if I let her--which I won't," he
said coldly.

The man's words seemed to bite right into the heart of his hearer.
Nothing could have been better calculated to goad him to extremity. In
one short, harsh sentence he had dashed every hope that the other
possessed. And with a rush the stricken man leapt at denial, which was
heartrending in its impotence.

"You lie!" he shouted. The old revolver was dragged from his pocket
and pointed shakingly at his tormentor's head. "Give her back to me!
Give her back, or--"

James' desperate courage never deserted him for an instant. And Scipio
was never allowed to complete his sentence. The other's hand suddenly
reached out, and the pistol was twisted from his shaking grasp with as
little apparent effort as though he had been a small child.

Scipio stared helpless and confused while James eyed the pattern of
the gun. Then he heard the man's contemptuous laugh and saw him pull
the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the
weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado's eyes sought the
pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their
depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his
whole manner underwent a hideous change.

"Here, take it, you wretched worm," he cried, with sudden savagery.
"Take it, you miserable fool," he added, as Scipio remained unheeding.
"It wouldn't blow even your fool brains out. Take it!" he reiterated,
with a command the other