his
milking and gone back to the corral, when two men rode around the
corner of the barn and asked if they could get something to eat. Poor
Baggs sold his life in six words: "Why, yes; be you Banks's men?"

Du Sang answered: "No; we're from Sheriff Coon's office at Oroville,
looking up a bunch of Duck Bar steers that's been run somewhere up
Deep Creek. Can we stay here all night?"

They dismounted and disarmed Baggs's suspicions, though the condition
of their horses might have warned him had he had his senses. The
unfortunate man had probably fixed it in his mind that a ride from
Tower W to Deep Creek in sixteen hours was a physical impossibility.

"Stay here? Sure! I want you to stay," said Baggs bluffly. "Looks to
me like I seen you down at Crawling Stone, ain't I?" he asked of
Karg.

Karg was lighting a cigarette. "I used to mark at the Dunning ranch,"
he answered, throwing away his match.

"That's hit. Good! The boy's cooking supper. Step up to the kitchen
and tell him to cut ham for four more."

"Four?"

"Two of Ed Banks's men will be here by six o'clock. Heard about the
hold-up? They stopped Number Three at Tower W last night and shot
Ollie Sollers, as white a boy as ever pulled a throttle. Boys, a man
that'll kill a locomotive engineer is worse'n an Indian; I'd help skin
him."

"The hell you would!" cried Du Sang. "Well, don't you want to start in
on me? I killed Sollers. Look at me; ain't I handsome? What you going
to do about it?"

Before Baggs could think Du Sang was shooting him down. It was
wanton. Du Sang stood in no need of the butchery; the escape could
have been made without it. His victim had pulled an engine throttle
too long to show the white feather, but he was dying by the time he
had dragged a revolver from his pocket. Du Sang did the killing alone.
At least, Flat Nose, who alone saw all of the murder, afterward
maintained that he did not draw because he had no occasion to, and
that Baggs was dead before he, Karg, had finished his cigarette. With
his right arm broken and two bullets through his chest, Baggs fell on
his face. That, however, did not check his murderer. Rising to his
knees, Baggs begged for his life. "For God's sake! I'm helpless,
gentlemen! I'm helpless. Don't kill me like a dog!" But Du Sang,
emptying his pistol, threw his rifle to his shoulder and sent bullet
after bullet crashing through the shapeless form writhing and
twitching before him until he had beaten it in th