e class of men you are now associating
with."

The slight bitterness in his tone stung the girl into resentment. She
was looking straight at him, but in the gloom he could not discern the
expression of her eyes.

"I don't believe it," she exclaimed decisively, "you--you do not look
like that!"

"My appearance may be sufficient to convince you," he returned, rather
dryly, "but would weigh little before a Western court. Unfortunately,
the evidence was strong against me; or would have been had the case ever
come to a trial. The strange thing about it was that both warrants
were sworn out by the same complainant, and apparently for a similar
purpose--'Black Bart' Hawley."

"What purpose?"

"To keep us from telling what we knew regarding a certain crime,
in which either he, or some of his intimate friends, were deeply
interested."

"But it would all come out at the trial, wouldn't it?"

"There was to be no trial; Judge Lynch settles the majority of such
cases out here at present. It is extremely simple. Listen, and I will
tell you the story."

He reviewed briefly those occurrences leading directly up to his arrest,
saying little regarding the horrors of that scene witnessed near
the Cimmaron Crossing, but making sufficiently clear his very slight
connection with it, and the reason those who were guilty of the crime
were so anxious to get him out of the way. She listened intently, asking
few questions, until he ended. Then they both looked up, conscious that
dawn was becoming gray in the east. Keith's first thought was one of
relief--the brightening sky showed him they were riding straight north.

Chapter XIII. The Ford of the Arkansas

They were still in the midst of the yellow featureless plain, but
the weary horses had slowed down to a walk, the heavy sand retarding
progress. It was a gloomy, depressing scene in the spectral gray light,
a wide circle of intense loneliness, unbroken by either dwarfed shrub
or bunch of grass, a barren expanse stretching to the sky. Vague cloud
shadows seemed to flit across the level surface, assuming fantastic
shapes, but all of the same dull coloring, imperfect and unfinished.
Nothing seemed tangible or real, but rather some grotesque picture of
delirium, ever merging into another yet more hideous. The very silence
of those surrounding wastes seemed burdensome, adding immeasurably to
the horror. They were but specks crawling underneath the sky--the only
living, movin