One was the Kid, wasn't it?..."

But now the Kid answered for himself. He rose to his knees among the
stunted manzanita bushes not twenty steps from them and for a moment
knelt there, his big bulky body wavering as he tried to bring his rifle
to rest at his shoulder, his eyes peering out wildly from a blood
smeared face. But his gesture was awkward and slow and uncertain; he
was too badly hurt to shoot straight or quick, and Thornton, swift and
sure and yet merciful withal, was before him. The Kid's rifle clattered
to the ground; the Kid's left arm, the bone broken, dropped uselessly to
his side. He tried to steady the gun with his one good arm alone, but it
shook hopelessly. He dropped it and turned bloodshot eyes on Thornton.

"Damn you," he said tonelessly. "Better do a clean job, you
white-livered coward, or I'll see you hang yet for killin' Charlie...."

"I was outside when he was shot," said Thornton coolly. "I saw just as
much as you did. Somebody shot him from behind me."

"Liar!" jeered Bedloe. "An'..."

"Don't be a fool, Bedloe," snapped Comstock. "The man you want is the
same man we want; only the other day he had a quarrel with Charlie and
got a bullet alongside the head...."

"Not Ben Broderick!" gasped the Kid stupidly. "Not him!"

"I think your little friend Jimmie Clayton knew," said Comstock. "And
you ought to know that Thornton isn't that kind."

With widening eyes the Kid stared at him. At last he got again to his
knees; finally and shakily to his feet.

"Jimmie tol' me to watch him," he muttered thickly. "An' him an' Charlie
did have words...."

He stared at them stupidly, hesitated, pondered the matter. Then he
turned and went lumbering down the road. Comstock, stepping forward
swiftly, called out:

"I say, Bedloe! None of that...."

But Bedloe neither turned again nor paused. Thornton's hand shut down
hard on Comstock's arm.

"He's going after Broderick," he said sharply. "Don't you see? He'll
know where Broderick is. And we don't. Besides ... I don't know just why
we should stop him.... If Broderick did kill Charlie...."

Comstock went back to administer to Hap Smith and the guard. Thornton
watched the Kid go to a horse hidden in a clump of trees; then as Bedloe
rode down into the road and passed on whither it led, sitting
slumped-forward and seeming at each step about to fall, Thornton rode
after him. The Kid did not so much as look around; perhaps it mattered
to him not in the l