out before Flandrau could stop them.

"Yes. You've never met him?"

"No."

Cullison had been watching the young man steadily. "Never saw him with
Soapy Stone?"

"No."

"Never heard Stone speak of Sam Cullison?"

"No. Soapy doesn't talk much about who his friends are."

The ex-sheriff nodded. "I've met him."

Of course he had met him. Curly knew the story of how in one drive he had
made a gather of outlaws that had brought fame to him. Soapy had broken
through the net, but the sheriff had followed him into the hills alone and
run him to earth. What passed between the men nobody ever found out. Stone
had repeatedly given it out that he could not be taken alive. But Cullison
had brought him down to the valley bound and cowed. In due season the
bandits had gone over the road to Yuma. Soapy and the others had sworn to
get their revenge some day. Now they were back in the hills at their old
tricks. Was it possible that Cullison's son was with them, caught in a
trap during some drunken frolic just as Curly had been? In what way could
Stone pay more fully the debt of hate he owed the former sheriff than by
making his son a villain?

The little doctor came briskly into the room.

"Everybody out but the nurse. You've had company enough for one day,
Luck," he announced cheerily.

Kate followed Maloney and his prisoner to the porch.

"About the letters of your friend that was shot," she said to Curly.
"Doctor Brown was telling me what you said. I'll see they reach Miss
Anderson. Do you know in what restaurant she works?"

"No. Mac didn't tell me." The boy gulped to swallow an unexpected lump in
his throat. "They was expecting to get married soon."

"I--I'll write to her," Kate promised, her eyes misty.

"I'd be obliged, Miss. Mac was a good boy. Anyone will tell you that. And
he was awful fond of her. He talked about her that last night before the
camp fire. I led him into this."

"I'll tell her what you say."

"Do. Tell her he felt bad about what he had done. Bad companions got him
going wrong, but he sure would have settled down into a good man. That's
straight goods, too. You write it strong."

The girl's eyes were shiny with tears. "Yes," she answered softly.

"I ain't any Harvard A. B. Writing letters ain't my long suit. I'm always
disremembering whether a man had ought to say have went and have knew.
Verbs are the beatingest things. But I know you'll fix it up right so as
to let that little girl down