able times that
followed, somehow I managed to get in bad with some of them. They had no
more use for me or my guns. I was like a fish out of water. I decided
to pull out, for a strange hankering to see England and my old home again
came over me. So I resigned my office and headed back to the Old
Country. . . ."

At this point in his narrative, Gully dropped his head in his hands and
rocked wearily awhile ere continuing haltingly: "It was the mistake of my
life--ever going back--to a civilized country. For a time I strove to
conduct myself as a law-abiding British citizen--to conform to the new
order of things, but--I had been amongst the rough stuff too long. I was
out of my sphere entirely.

"One day, in a hotel at Leeds, I got into a violent quarrel with a
man--fellow of the name of Hammond. It was over a woman. He insulted
me--in front of a crowd of men at that--and finally he struck me.
Hitherto I'd taken no back-down from any man living, and I guess I forgot
myself then and kind of ran amuck--fancied I was back in Montana again.
Consequence was--I threw down on him in front of this crowd and shot him
dead.

"Of course I was arrested and charged with murder in the first degree;
but as it was adduced at my trial that I'd received a certain amount of
provocation, I was sent down for fifteen years. I'd done little over six
months of my time in Barmsworth Prison when I and two of my fellow
convicts framed up a scheme to escape. It takes too long to go into
details how we worked it. I made my get-away, though I had to abolish a
poor devil of a warder in doing so. The other two lost out. One got
shot and the other was caught some days later--as I read in the papers.

"Well! I managed to reach the States again, and eventually came over
this side of the line. As I had been convicted and sentenced under the
alias which I had adopted while in England--my real name never coming
out--I resumed my name of Gully again when I settled down here. My
relatives, what few I possess, have never known of my conviction and
imprisonment. All the time I was in England on my second trip I was
clean-shaven, but on returning to the States I let my moustache grow once
more. As you said, Kilbride--it is a very effectual disguise. Will one
of you give me a drink, please? My mouth's pretty dry with all this
talking."

Yorke got up and brought him a glass of water, and he drank it down with
a murmur of thanks.

"Now!" h