t it more than likely that
for once Jimmie Clayton was acting in good faith.

The Jimmie Clayton whom he found alone a little after moonrise was very
much as he had found him that other night. The fugitive lay upon the
bunk in the darkness of the dugout, and only when he was assured that it
was Buck Thornton come to him did he light his stub of candle. As before
Thornton entered and closed the door after him to look down on the man
with a sharp twinge of pity.

"How're they coming, Jimmie?" he asked gently.

"Can't you see?" replied Clayton with a nervous laugh. "I'm all in,
Buck. All in."

If ever a man looked to be "all in" it was poor little Jimmie Clayton.
He threw back his coat for Thornton to see. There upon the side was the
stain of blood hardly dry upon the shirt. His eyes were hollow, sunken,
fever-filled, his cheeks unthinkably drawn, yellow-white and sickly, the
hand which fell back weakly from the exertion of opening his coat showed
the bones thrust up as though they would pierce the skin.

"You've been shot again?" demanded the cowboy.

Jimmie shook his head.

"The same ol' hole, Buck; Colt forty-five. It won't heal up, it breaks
out all the time. I can't sleep with it, I can't eat, I can't set
still." He had begun manfully, but now the little whimper came back
into his voice, his shaking hand gripped Thornton's arm feebly, and he
cried tremulously, "I wisht I was dead, Buck. Hones' to Gawd, I wisht I
was dead!"

"Poor little old Jimmie," Thornton muttered just as he had muttered the
words once before, gently, pityingly. "Is there anything I can do,
Jimmie."

Jimmie drew back his hand and lay still for a little, his eyes seeming
unnaturally large as he turned them upwards, filled at once with a sort
of defiance and an abject, cringing terror.

"Nothin'," he said a little sullenly. His eyes dropped and ran to the
fingers of his hand which were plucking nervously at his coat. He parted
his lips as though he would say something else and then closed them
tightly; even his eyes shut tight for a moment. Thornton watched him,
waiting. It was easy to see that Jimmie Clayton had upon the tip of his
tongue something he wished to say, and that he hesitated ... through
fear?

"What is it, Jimmie?" Thornton asked after a while.

Jimmie lifted his head quickly, his eyes flew open with a look in them
almost of defiance as he blurted out:

"Do you know who shot you ... that time down in Juarez?"

"Was it