ver the faces now gathered so closely about. It was not
that she was any longer afraid. It was merely that she looked for one
friendly glance. She found it in the round face of Angel Gay. He was
smiling on her. And at once she plunged into her story.

"Will Henderson--my husband, was the cattle-thief," she said. And for
a moment she could go no further. Had she desired to create a
sensation, she amply succeeded. The doctor had to call for silence so
that she might proceed.

Having made the plunge, her story came clearly and concisely. She told
everything without sparing either herself or her husband. She began
from the time when Will had been ordered out of Barnriff, and told all
the pitiful, sordid details, right down to his final return after
escaping from the doctor's men at the Little Bluff River. Everything
she told as she knew it, except the part Jim had played in his actual
escape. This she could not bring herself to speak of.

The story took some time in the telling, but there was not a man
amongst those assembled that did not hungrily take in every detail of
it. And as it unrolled, to the final scene of Will's return, when
again he ill-used her and departed in search of Elia to kill him, and
his final promise to return later and kill her, a fierce light of
understanding grew on the swarthy, rough faces, and muttered
imprecations flew from lip to lip. All bitterness for Jim had passed
from their thoughts, all except, perhaps, from the thoughts of
Smallbones.

And Jim remained silent all the time. He, too, was listening. He, too,
shared again in the thoughts which now assailed the others. The
hideous brutality, as it appeared, told in Eve's simple words, set his
blood boiling afresh against the dead man. Though he knew it all only
too well, it still had power to rouse the worst side of his nature.

At the conclusion, Doc Crombie suddenly turned to Jim. He offered no
comment, no sympathy.

"Now, I guess, you'll talk some," he said, in his usual harsh tone.
But somehow his words seemed to contain a smile.

"The boy has told you who killed Will Henderson," Jim answered at
once. "I can't, because I didn't see him killed. I'll tell you the
part I had in the affair. It's not pretty." He paused, but went on
almost at once. "I happened along to Mrs. Henderson's house directly I
came in to town. I had news for her. You know the news. Will had
escaped."

"Yes," cried Smallbones, unable to keep silent longer, "bec