rtune, to leave this case strictly alone. I
thank you just as much for your good intentions, but we don't look at
this matter the same. I quit the law when I lost title to the
Gunsight, and I'm going to play out my hand to the end. I claim
there's a law that's above all these lawyers--and judges and supreme
courts, too--and that's the will of the people. I may be mistaken, but
I'll gamble my life on it and if I lose--you can have the whole mine."

"I don't want the whole mine," she answered resentfully, "I want--I
want you to be free. Oh, I came to tell you about all we're
doing--about the construction and the mine work and all--but I just
can't say a word. Are you determined to plead your own case?"

"Why, certainly," he said. "Why shouldn't I do it? I don't consider
I've done anything wrong. I hope you don't think, just because I
killed McBain, that I'm suffering any regrets? Because I'm not, nor
nothing of the kind--I'm glad I killed him like I did. He had it
coming to him and, gimme a square jury, I'll make 'em say I did right."

"I guess I don't understand," she stammered at last, "but--but I'm glad
that it doesn't seem wrong. I can't understand how a man could do it;
but I'll help you, any way I can."

"All right," said Rimrock and looked at her strangely, "I'll tell you
what you can do. In the first place I want you to go back to Gunsight
and stay there until I come back. And in the second place--well, I
can't forget what I did--that day. I want you to say it's all right."

"It is all right," she answered quickly, "I guess that's what I came to
say. And will you forgive me, too, for letting you lie here and never
doing anything to help?"

"Oh, that's nothing," said Rimrock, "I don't mind it much. But say,
isn't there anything else?"

"No!" she said, but the hot blood mounted up and mantled her cheeks
with red.

"Come on," he beckoned. "Just to show you forgive me--it will help me
to win if you do."

She looked around, up and down the narrow corridor, and then laid her
cheek to the bars. Who would not do as much, out of Christian
kindness, for a man who had suffered so much?

CHAPTER XII

RIMROCK'S BIG DAY

The white heat of midsummer settled down on the desert and the
rattlesnakes and Gila monsters holed up. As in the frozen East they
hibernated in winter to escape the grip of the cold, so in sun-cursed
Papagueria, where the Tecolotes lie, they crawled as deep to get away