he said, with a breathlessness that told of
the intense strain he had been laboring under.

Still Harlan did not speak; and his guns were in their holsters when
Morgan walked close to him, grinning wanly.

"I had to do it. There's no use tryin' to depend on the law in this
country. You've seen that, yourself."

"I've noticed it," grinned Harlan. "You're feelin' bad over it. I
wouldn't. If it had been my dad he killed I couldn't have done any
different. I reckon any man with blood in him would feel that way about a
coyote like that killin' his father. If men don't feel that way, why do
they drag murderers to courts--where they have courts--an' ask the law to
kill them. That's just shovin' the responsibility onto some other guy.

"I've handed several guys their pass-out checks, an' I ain't regrettin'
one of them. There wasn't one of them that didn't have it comin' to him.
They was lookin' for it, mostly, an' had to have it. I've heard of guys
that had killed a man feelin' squeamish over it--with ghosts visitin'
them at night; an' sufferin' a lot of mental torture. I reckon any man
would feel that way if he'd killed an inoffensive man--or a good man, or
one that hadn't been tryin' to murder him." He grinned again. "Why, I'm
preachin'!"

And now into his gaze as he looked at Morgan, came cold reproach.

"You wasn't figurin' to let Barbara play it a lone hand?" he said.

"Hell's fire--no!" denied Morgan, his eyes blazing. "I've been watchin'
the Rancho Seco--as I told Haydon. I saw Barbara set out for Lamo. There
was no one followin' her, an' so I thought she'd be all right. That mixup
at Lamo slipped me. But I seen you an' Barbara come back, an' I heard the
boys talkin' about what happened at Lamo. I'd heard of you, too; an' when
I seen you come back with Barbara I watched you. An' I seen you was
square, so I trusted you a heap.

"An' I had a talk with Sheriff Gage about you, an' he told me my dad had
sent to Pardo for you, through Dave Hallowell, the marshal of Pardo. Gage
said you was out to clean up Deveny an' Haydon, an' so I knowed I could
depend on you."

"Barbara don't know you're hangin' around here--she ain't known it?"

"Shucks, I reckon not," grinned Morgan. "I didn't come here for six
months after I left the Rancho Seco--until I growed a beard. Barbara's
been within a dozen feet of me, an' never knowed me. I've been thinkin'
of telling her, but I seen Haydon was sweet on her, an' I didn't dare
tell he