, ye made a
good talk. Keep quiet--we don't want to hurt ye."

At this supposed perfidy the Gap's rage was at white-heat again; the men
massed together, and fierce and quick as lightning the messenger's fate
was wrought. The work of adjusting the rope and noose was complete and
death going on in the air when Drylyn, meaning to look the ground over
for the rescue, came cautiously back up the hill and saw the body, black
against the clear sunset sky. At his outcry they made ready for him, and
when he blindly rushed among them they held him, and paid no attention
to his ravings. Then, when the rope had finished its work, they let him
go, and the sheriff too. The driver's friend had left his horses among
the pines, and had come up to see what was going on at the Gap. He now
joined the crowd.

"You meant well," the sheriff said to him. "I wish you would tell the
boys how you come to be here. They're thinking I lied to them."

"Maybe I can change their minds." It was Drylyn's deep voice. "I am the
man you were hunting," he said.

[Illustration: "'I'D LIKE TO HAVE IT OVER'"]

They looked at him seriously, as one looks at a friend whom an illness
has seized. The storm of feeling had spent itself, the mood of the Gap
was relaxed and torpid, and the serenity of coming dusk began to fill
the mountain air.

"You boys think I'm touched in the head," said Drylyn, and paused. "This
knife done it," said he. "This one I'm showing you."

They looked at the knife in his hand.

"He come between me and her," Drylyn pursued. "I was aiming to give him
his punishment myself. That would have been square." He turned the knife
over in his hand, and, glancing up from it, caught the look in their
eyes. "You don't believe me!" he exclaimed, savagely. "Well, I'm going
to make you. Sheriff, I'll bring you some evidence."

He walked to the creek, and they stood idle and dull till he returned.
Then they fell back from him and his evidence, leaving him standing
beneath the dead man.

"Does them look like being touched in the head?" inquired Drylyn, and he
threw down the overalls, which fell with a damp slap on the ground. "I
don't seem to mind telling you," he said. "I feel as quiet--as quiet as
them tall pines the sun's just quittin' for the night." He looked at the
men expectantly, but none of them stirred. "I'd like to have it over,"
said he.

Still no one moved.

"I have a right to ask it shall be quick," he repeated. "You were quick