e out of the window. 'Now,' said I, 'you'll never make a Mary Jane
of yourself while I can help it. If nothing but that disguise stands
between you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.'

"That was the way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His
supple nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than
to entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears.
But MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that I should not
pursue it.

"'He's my pard, and you shall not bully him,' he cried.

"'He's my brother, and you shall not ruin him,' said I. 'I believe a
spell of prison is the very best way of keeping you apart, and you
shall have it, or it will be no fault of mine.'

"'Oh, you would squeal, would you?' he cried, and in an instant he
whipped out his revolver. I sprang for his hand, but saw that I was
too late, and jumped aside. At the same instant he fired, and the
bullet which would have struck me passed through the heart of my
unfortunate brother.

"He dropped without a groan upon the floor of the compartment, and
MacCoy and I, equally horrified, knelt at each side of him, trying to
bring back some signs of life. MacCoy still held the loaded revolver
in his hand, but his anger against me and my resentment towards him had
both for the moment been swallowed up in this sudden tragedy. It was
he who first realized the situation. The train was for some reason
going very slowly at the moment, and he saw his opportunity for escape.
In an instant he had the door open, but I was as quick as he, and
jumping upon him the two of us fell off the footboard and rolled in
each other's arms down a steep embankment. At the bottom I struck my
head against a stone, and I remembered nothing more. When I came to
myself I was lying among some low bushes, not far from the railroad
track, and somebody was bathing my head with a wet handkerchief. It
was Sparrow MacCoy.

"'I guess I couldn't leave you,' said he. 'I didn't want to have the
blood of two of you on my hands in one day. You loved your brother,
I've no doubt; but you didn't love him a cent more than I loved him,
though you'll say that I took a queer way to show it. Anyhow, it seems
a mighty empty world now that he is gone, and I don't care a
continental whether you give me over to the hangman or not.'

"He had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with his
useless foot, and I with my throbbing head, and we