kid in the sand, swore and cried that it was 'that d----n Orphan'
who had done it, and the name stuck. He had become an outlaw and was
legitimate prey for any man who had the chance and grit to turn the
trick. For ten years he has been wandering all over the range like a
hunted gray wolf, fighting for his life at every turn against all kinds of
odds, both human and natural. And I reckon that explains why he is accused
of doing so much killing. He has been hunted and forced to shoot to
save his own life, and a gray wolf is a fighter when cornered. I know
that I wouldn't give up the ghost if I could help it, and neither would
anybody else."

"Oh, it is a shame, an awful shame!" cried Helen, tears of sympathy in her
eyes. "How could they do it? I don't blame him, not a bit! He did right,
terrible as it was! And only a boy when they began, too! Oh, it is awful,
almost unbelievable!"

"Yes, it is, Sis," replied Shields earnestly. "It ain't his fault, not
by any manner or means--he was warped." And then he added slowly: "But Tom
and I will straighten him out, and if some folks hereabouts don't like it,
they can shore lump it, or fight."

"Tell me how you met him, Jim," requested Blake in the interval of
silence. "I've heard some of it, second-handed, or third-handed, but I'd
like to have it straight."

"Well," the sheriff continued, "when he came to these parts I didn't
know anything about him except what I had heard, which was only bad. He
had a nasty way of handling his gun, a hair-trigger and a nervous finger
on his gun, and he had a distressing way of using one cow to a meal, so
I got busy. I didn't expect much trouble in getting him. I knew that he
was only a youngster and I counted on my fifty years, and most of them
of experience, getting him. Being young, I reckoned he would be foolhardy
and hasty and uncertain in his wisdom; but, Lord! it was just like trying
to catch a flea in the dark. He was here, there and everywhere. While
I was down south hunting along his trail he would be up north objecting
to the sheep industry in ingenious ways and varying his bill of fare
with choice cuts of lamb and mutton. And by the time I got down south he
would be--God only knows where, I didn't. I could only guess, and I
guessed wrong until the last one. And then it was the toss of a coin
that decided it.

"After a while he began to get more daring, and when I say more daring I
mean an open game with no limit. He began to prove