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 a troop of riders swept down the road and roared into town; nor the bellow of Waco Johnson's shotgun as he pulled up short at sight of the hounds rushing their fallen victim, nor the cry of despair that rose, sharp as a woman's wail, when Jo Shelby's veteran and the others emptied their miscellaneous guns.

"He's dead!" Waco said, his voice catching with the sound of a sob. "He wouldn't be layin' there if he wasn't dead—all hell couldn't stop him if he wasn't dead! Some of you men carry him to the wagon, and the rest of you come with me."

One of the cowboys on top of the cattle car, unable to keep the code of neutrality at sight of this dramatic sweep of vengeance against the gang that did its fighting like a pack of coyotes, pointed to the upstairs window, and at Simpson, leaving the rest to Waco. It was as plain as words to Waco, who backed his horse off a little way and called an order to the unmentionable-pedigreed scoundrel within to show his head. As there was no head presented, nor even the breath of anybody at the curtains, Waco fired two charges of buckshot into the window and then rode up to the saloon door.

Waco called on them to come out and fight if they had the courage to turn a key. He was so engrossed in his defiance, so set in his vengeance, so determined to make that nest too hot to hold them, as he declared, that he did not see the streak of bay horse flash by, its rider leaning like a jockey in the last lap of a mighty race. Waco was so somberly set on avenging his fallen friend that he did not even turn his head when the cowboys on the car gave the girl a cheer as she flung herself from the