You can't. An' I'll tell you." He broke off suddenly, his
eyes burning with an anxious intensity upon Thornton's. Then, with a new
note in his voice, a half whimper, he blurted out, "Hones' to Gawd, I'll
blow my brains out before I let 'em get me again! But you wouldn't give
me away, Buck, would you? You'd remember how I stuck by you down in El
Paso, won't you, Buck? You wouldn't give a damn for ... for a reward if
they was to offer one, would you, Buck? 'Cause you know I'd shoot myself
if they got me, an' you don't forget how I stuck to you, do you, Buck?"

"No, Jimmie," came the assurance very softly. "I don't give a damn for
the reward and I don't forget. Pull yourself together, Jimmie."

"Then here it is, an' I'll give you my word, s'elp me Gawd, that every
little bit of it is like I'm tellin' you. I ain't stringin' you, Buck,
an' I am puttin' myself in your hands, like one friend with another.
That's right, ain't it?"

"That's right, Jimmie. Go ahead."

"They had me in the pen, then; you knowed that, Buck? Run me in, by
Gawd, because I happened to be havin' a drink with a man named Stenton
an' a man named Cosgrove an' a dirty Mex as was all crooked an' was
wanted for somethin' they pulled off back down there ... I don't know
rightly what it was, damn if I do, Buck! But they wanted _somebody_, an'
they got the deadwood on them jaspers, an' me bein' seen with 'em, they
put me across, too. Put me across three years ago, Buck! An' it was
hell, jes' hell, that's all. Hell for a man like me, Buck, as is used to
sleepin outdoors an' the fresh air blowin' over the big ranges, an'
horses an' things. An' ... well, I stood it for three years, Buck. Three
years, man! Think o' that! _You_ don't know what it means. An' then,
when I couldn't stand it no longer," and his voice dropped suddenly and
the look of the hunted ran back into his eyes, "I broke jail. An' I got
this."

He touched his fingers gingerly to the bandaged side, wincing even with
the gesture.

"Two bullets," he muttered. "Colt forty-fives. An' I been like this nine
days. Or ten, I ain't sure. An' nights, Buck. The nights ... Gawd!"

Thornton, his lips tightening a little, watched the man and for a moment
said nothing. And then, suddenly, his voice commanding the truth:

"Don't hold back anything, Jimmie," he said. "It'll be all over the
country in a week, anyway. How'd you make your get-away? Did you have
to kill anybody?"

He had his answer in the silen