hich the first speaker
asked:

"How did you do it?"

"Well," replied the other man, "ther' wasn't anything p'tickler 'bout
it. Me an' him wuzn't acquainted, so he didn't suspect me. But I know'd
his face--he wuz p'inted out to me once, durin' the gold-rush to Kern
River, an' I never forgot him. I wuz on a road I never traveled
before--goin' to see an old greaser, ownin' a mighty pretty piece of
ground I wanted--when all of a sudden I come on a cabin, an' thar stood
Bill in front of it, a-smokin'. I axed him fur a light, an' when he came
up to give it to me, I grabbed him by the shirt-collar an' dug the spur
into the mare. 'Twus kind of a mean trick, imposin' on hospitality
that-a-way; but 'twuz Bowney, you know. He hollered, an' I let him walk
in front, but I kep' him covered with the revolver till I met some
fellers, that tied him good an' tight. 'Twuzn't excitin' wurth a
durn--that is, ixcep' when his wife--I s'pose 'twuz--hollered, then I
a'most wished I'd let him go."

"Sheriff got him?" inquired the first speaker.

"Well, no," returned the captor. "Sheriff an' judge mean well, I s'pose;
but they're slow--mighty slow. Besides, he's got friends, an' they might
be too much fur the sheriff some night. We tuk him to the Broad Oak, an'
we thought we'd ax the neighbors over thar to-night, to talk it over. Be
thar?"

"You bet!" replied the first speaker. "And I'll bring my friends;
nothing like having plenty of witnesses in important legal cases."

"Jus' so," responded the other. "Well, here's till then;" and the two
men separated.

The Broad Oak was one of those magnificent trees which are found
occasionally through Southern California, singly or dispersed in
handsome natural parks.

The specimen which had so impressed people as to gain a special name for
itself was not only noted for its size, but because it had occasionally
been selected as the handiest place in which Judge Lynch could hold his
court without fear of molestation by rival tribunals.

Bill Bowney, under favorable circumstances, appeared to be a very
homely, lazy, sneaking sort of an individual; but Bill Bowney, covered
with dust, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes torn, and his hands and feet
tightly bound, had not a single attractive feature about him.

He stared earnestly up into the noble tree under whose shadow he lay;
but his glances were not of admiration--they seemed, rather, to be
resting on two or three fragments of rope which remained o