etter come along down to Red Gap and tell the district attorney about
it. Pete said all right and crawled into his tepee for his coat and
hat--crawled right on out the back and into the brush while the deputy
rolled a cigarette.

"That was when he joined this bunch of noble redmen to advertise the
vanishing romance of the Great West--being helped out of the country, I
shouldn't wonder, by some lawless old hound that had feelings for him
and showed it when he come along in the night to the ranch where he'd
nursed her and her baby. They looked for him a little while, then
dropped it; in fact, everybody was kind of glad he'd got off and kind of
satisfied that he'd put this bad Injin, with his skull-duggery, over the
big jump.

"Then he got homesick, like I told you, and showed up here at the door;
and I saw it was better for him to give himself up and get out of it by
fair and legal means. Now! You got it straight that far?"

I nodded.

"So Pete took my advice, and a couple days later I hurried down to Red
Gap and had a talk with Judge Ballard and the district attorney. The
judge said it had been embarrassing to justice to have my old Injin
walk in on 'em, because every one knew he was guilty. Why couldn't he of
stayed up here where the keen-eyed officers of the law could of
pretended not to know he was? And the old fool was only making things
worse with his everlasting chatter about his brother-in-law, every one
knowing there wasn't such a person in existence--old Pete having had
dozens of every kind of relation in the world but a brother-in-law. But
they're going to have this bright young lawyer defend him, and they have
hopes.

"Then I talked some. I said it was true that everybody knew Pete bumped
off this old crook that had it coming to him, but they could never prove
it, because Pete had come to my place and set up with me all night, when
I had lumbago or something, the very night this crime was done
thirty-odd miles distant by some person or persons unknown--except it
could be known they had good taste about who needed killing.

"At this Judge Ballard jumps up and calls me an old liar and shook hands
warmly with me; and Cale Jordan, that was district attorney then, says
if Mrs. Pettengill will give him her word of honour to go on the witness
stand and perjure herself to this effect then he don't see no use of
even putting Kulanche County, State of Washington, to the expense of a
trial, the said county already