gave the former some account of the
condition of Shank Leather.

"Tell me, Ritson," said Charlie, "what you mean by Shank `nearly' and
`not quite' belonging to your band."

The outlaw was silent for some time. Then he seemed to make up his mind
to speak out.

"Brooke," he said, "it did, till this night, seem to me that all the
better feelings of my nature--whatever they were--had been blotted out
of existence, for since I came to this part of the world the cruelty and
injustice that I have witnessed and suffered have driven me to
desperation, and I candidly confess to you that I have come to hate
pretty nigh the whole human race. The grip of your hand and tone of
your voice, however, have told me that I have not yet sunk to the lowest
possible depths. But that is not what I mean to enlarge on. What I
wish you to understand is, that after Shank and I had gone to the dogs,
and were reduced to beggary, I made up my mind to join a band of men who
lived chiefly by their wits, and sometimes by their personal courage.
Of course I won't say who they are, because we still hang together, and
there is no need to say what we are. The profession is variously named,
and not highly respected.

"Shank refused to join me, so we parted. He remained for some time in
New York doing odd jobs for a living. Then he joined a small party of
emigrants, and journeyed west. Strange to say, although the country is
wide, he and I again met accidentally. My fellows wanted to overhaul
the goods of the emigrants with whom he travelled. They objected. A
fight followed in which there was no bloodshed, for the emigrants fled
at the first war-whoop. A shot from one of them, however, wounded one
of our men, and one of theirs was so drunk at the time of the flight
that he fell off his horse and was captured. That man was Shank. I
recognised him when I rode up to see what some of my boys were
quarrelling over, and found that it was the wounded man wanting to shove
his knife into Shank.

"The moment I saw his face I claimed him as an old chum, and had him
carried up to our headquarters in Traitor's Trap. There he has remained
ever since, in a very shaky condition, for the fall seems to have
injured him internally, besides almost breaking his neck. Indeed I
think his spine is damaged,--he recovers so slowly. We have tried to
persuade him to say that he will become one of us when he gets well, but
up to this time he has steadily refused.