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 sonatin' a officer in this man's town!" the marshal threatened.

"He never done it, Mr. City Marshal," Wallace interposed. "I'm the feller that done the 'personatin' if they was any 'personatin' 'personated."

Wallace pulled the dectective badge out of his pocket and offered it as evidence of his guilt.

"Seein' you're itchin' to be locked up, come along," the marshal ordered, shifting his heels and his gun to include Wallace in the net of the law.

"Now, look a here, marshal; them boys belong to my outfit, and neither one of them's to"

"Make your speech in court, cowman," the marshal cut Coburn off.

"You'll have to let 'em out on bail, and I'm ready to put up any amount," Coburn insisted.

Kane had recovered his wind, together with the pouring of water over his head by his wife, who had come running in, white-faced, big-eyed and silent, from her place at the desk in the hall, and the pouring down of something stronger by the bartender. Kane was leaning weakly against the bar, where his astonished and dumbfounded men had assisted him, his head lopping sickly, his face gashed and bruised. He brisked up at the mention of bail.

"He slugged me with knucks!" he charged. "Lock him up for murder!"

The marshal waved his two prisoners out ahead of him with his gun, opening a way through the crowd that had come back almost as quickly as it had dispersed. Sid Coburn and his two cowboys backed into a corner where