r anything.
'Unstable as water.' That's what's the matter with him. He is the slave
of his own whims. Hence he is only the splendid wreck of a man, full
of all kinds of rich outcropping pay-ore that pinch out when you try to
work them. They don't raise men gamer, but that only makes him a more
dangerous foe to society. Same with his loyalty and his brilliancy. He's
got a haid on him that works like they say old J. E. B. Stuart's did. He
would run into a hundred traps, but somehow he always worked his men out
of them. That's Leroy, too. If he had been an ordinary criminal he
would have been rounded up years ago. It's his audacity, his iron nerve,
his good horse-sense judgment that saves his skin. But he's certainly up
against it at last."

"You think Sheriff Forbes will capture him?"

He laughed. "I think it more likely he'll capture Forbes. But we know
now where he hangs out, and who he is. He has always been a mystery till
now. The mystery is solved, and unless he strikes out for Sonora, Leroy
is as good as a dead man."

"A dead man?"

"Does he strike you as a man likely to be taken alive? I look to see a
dramatic exit to the sound of cracking Winchesters."

"Yes, that would be like him," she confessed with shudder. "I think he
was made to lead a forlorn hope. Pity it won't be one worthy of the best
in him."

"I guess he does have more moments set to music than most of us, and
I'll bet, too, he has hidden way in him a list of 'Thou shalt nots.' I
read a book once by a man named Stevenson that was sure virgin gold. He
showed how every man, no matter how low he falls, has somewhere in him
a light that burns, some rag of honor for which he is still fighting I'd
hate to have to judge Leroy. Some men, I reckon, have to buck against so
much in themselves that even failure is a kind of success for them."

"Yet you will go out to hunt him down?" she' said, marveling at the
broad sympathy of the man.

"Sure I will. My official duty is to look out for society. If something
in the machine breaks loose and goes to ripping things to pieces, the
engineer has to stop the damage, even if he has to smash the rod that's
causing the trouble."

The ponies dropped down again into the bed of the wash, and plowed
across through the heavy sand. After they had reached the solid road,
Collins resumed conversation at a new point.

"It's a month and a day since I first met you Miss Mackenzie," he said,
apparently apropos of nothing.