running the gamut from the murder
of a stage driver to the theft of cattle from Kemble's place! That is
the thing I am waiting for!"

She frowned. A mental picture of the cowboy rose quickly and vividly
before her. She saw the clear, steadfast eyes, the free, upright
carriage, the flash of a smile that was like a boy's. She had come to be
firm in her belief that he was the man who had robbed her, had forced
the insult of his kiss upon her, but it was hard, with that picture of
him before her, to think him a murderer, too. But then, as though to
sweep away her last shred of doubt, the vision widened and into it came
another man: she saw Buck Thornton as she had seen him only a few
minutes ago, in seeming friendly conversation with the youngest Bedloe
whose eyes soiled the woman they rested upon, whose name had travelled
even to her home in Crystal City and beyond as a roisterer, a brawler,
a man of unsavoury deeds done boldly and shamelessly.

"I am a little sick of it all," she said wearily. "I want to go back
home, uncle."

He had looked for that and had his answer ready.

"I know, Winifred. And I don't blame you. But I want you to stay a
little longer, won't you? Your evidence is going to be the strongest
card in our deck. Will you stay and give it?"

"How long?"

"Not long now. I expect Dalton here today."

"Who is Dalton?"

"Cole Dalton, the sheriff. He is as anxious as I am to get his hands on
Thornton. The whole country has been growing hotter in its criticisms of
him every day for the last six months, blaming him for not rounding up
the man who has committed one depredation on top of another, and gotten
away with it."

"And you are sure," she hesitated a little in spite of herself,
repeating, "you are sure ... that Buck Thornton is that man?"

"Yes. I guessed it a long time ago. I know it now that he has robbed
you. You will wait a few days, won't you?"

"Yes, I'll wait. But, oh," she cried out with sudden vehemence, swinging
about when half way to the door, "I hate this sort of thing! Get it over
with quick, Uncle Henry!"

She left him then and went upstairs to her own room where for a little
she tried to concentrate her wandering thoughts upon a book. But in the
end she flung the volume aside impatiently and went to her window,
staring down into the neglected tangle of the front yard and the glimpse
of the street through the straggling branches of the pear trees. She
tried to see only that men l