y began to go out of the stable. At the gleams
of new daylight which they let in my thoughts went to the clump of
cottonwoods, and I lay still with hands and feet growing steadily
cold. Now it was going to happen. I wondered how they would do it; one
instance had been described to me by a witness, but that was done from a
bridge, and there had been but a single victim. This morning, would one
have to wait and see the other go through with it first?

The smell of smoke reached me, and next the rattle of tin dishes.
Breakfast was something I had forgotten, and one of them was cooking it
now in the dry shelter of the stable. He was alone, because the talking
and the steps were outside the stable, and I could hear the sounds of
horses being driven into the corral and saddled. Then I perceived that
the coffee was ready, and almost immediately the cook called them. One
came in, shutting the door behind him as he reentered, which the rest as
they followed imitated; for at each opening of the door I saw the light
of day leap into the stable and heard the louder sounds of the rain.
Then the sound and the light would again be shut out, until some one at
length spoke out bluntly, bidding the door be left open on account of
the smoke. What were they hiding from? he asked. The runaways that had
escaped? A laugh followed this sally, and the door was left open. Thus
I learned that there had been more thieves than the two that were
captured. It gave a little more ground for their suspicion about me and
my anxiety to pass the night elsewhere. It cost nothing to detain me,
and they were taking no chances, however remote.

The fresh air and the light now filled the stable, and I lay listening
while their breakfast brought more talk from them. They were more at
ease now than was I, who had nothing to do but carry out my role of
slumber in the stall; they spoke in a friendly, ordinary way, as if this
were like every other morning of the week to them. They addressed the
prisoners with a sort of fraternal kindness, not bringing them pointedly
into the conversation, nor yet pointedly leaving them out. I made out
that they must all be sitting round the breakfast together, those who
had to die and those who had to kill them. The Virginian I never heard
speak. But I heard the voice of Steve; he discussed with his captors the
sundry points of his capture.

"Do you remember a haystack?" he asked. "Away up the south fork of Gros
Ventre?"

"That