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 girl won't let him die. She wouldn't let nobody die, not even me."

Seeing there was a doubt who deserved to be shot and who should go free, Waco said, and considering that it was better to allow five guilty ones to escape what was coming to them than to go wrong on one innocent man, they'd call it a day and let it end there.

"Scatter to hell out o' here! Hunt your holes!" he said.

They went, and the guns they had left behind them in Kane's bar began to pop in the fire, and the corked bottles of liquor began to explode and, as the heat grew around them, even the beer kegs raised a head of steam and burst their thick staves with fire-muffled roar.

The building burned like a box, its construction being of the cheapest and poorest, the last thing to go being the row of thick posts which had braced the ceiling of the dining-room. These stood awhile in the swirl of fire like columns in a ruin. In the bar end of the building Kane's stock of ardent spirits tinged the fire with blue.

Waco Johnson and his companions were patrolling the fire to keep it from spreading, the nearest building being not more than a hundred feet away, the corral which Kane maintained for his customers between. They kept the planks and roof of the building, which was no other than the hardware store, from going like its neighbor, a labor in which the townsmen lent a hearty hand.

Waco was standing by when the fire had burned down to safety, thinking of going to see how Tom Simpson was pulling along, when Mrs. Kane returned. She was wear-