at last, as if to
himself, "and I've got a job on hand which same I oughta put through
without givin' attention to anything else. As a usual thing folks don't
care fer me, and I don't care much fer folks. Women especial. They
drives me plumb tired. I reckon I don't stack up very high in th' blue
chips when it comes to cashin' in with the gentle sex, anyhow; but in
general they gives me as much notice as they lavishes on a doodle-bug. I
ain't kickin', you understand, nary bit; but onct in a dog's age I kind
of hankers fer a decent look from one of 'em. I ain't never had no
women-folks of my own, never. Sometimes I thinks it would be some
scrumptious to know a little gal waitin' fer me somewhere. They ain't
none. They never will be. I ain't built that way. You treated me white
to-night. You're th' first woman that ever kissed me of her own accord."

The girl heard a faint scramble, then the soft _pat_ of someone landing
on his feet. Peering from the window she made out a faint, shadowy form
stealing around the corner of the hotel. She put her hand to her heart
and listened. Her understanding of the stranger's motives was vague at
best, but she had caught his confession that her kiss had meant much to
him, and even in her anxiety she felt an inclination to laugh. She had
bestowed that caress as she would have kissed the cold end of a dog's
nose.

The men below stairs had, after some discussion, decided on bullet. This
was out of consideration for Billy's standing as a frontiersman.
Besides, he had stolen no horses. In order not to delay matters, the
execution was fixed for the present time and place. Billy stood with his
back to the logs of his own hotel, his hands and feet bound, but his
eyes uncovered. He had never lost his nerve. In the short respite which
preparation demanded, he told his opponents what he thought of them.

"Proud?" he concluded a long soliloquy as if to the reflector of the
lamp. "Proud?" he repeated, reflectively. "This yere Hank's jest that
proud he's all swelled up like a poisoned pup. Ain't everyone kin corall
a man sleepin' and git fifty thousand without turnin' a hair."

Black Hank distributed three men to do the business. There were no
heroics. The execution of this man was necessary to him, not because he
was particularly angry over the escape of the messenger--he expected to
capture that individual in due time--but in order to preserve his
authority over his men. He was in the act of movi