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 satchel and my horse. No sheriff ever deputized that gang to hunt anybody!"

"They're a set of bullying scoundrels," he said, this time with conviction, there being no reservation whatever in his opinion on that score. "I saw them in Drumwell last night."

Mrs. Ellison came up breathlessly, her composure greatly disturbed.

"Thank mercy! you're not hurt!" she said, vastly relieved to see Simpson on his feet. "They're gone—they're gone!"

"Yes, mother, they're gone," the girl said assuringly, gazing hard down the road, perhaps thinking of the limp burden across the saddle. "We've got Mr. Simpson to thank for saving Frank—I never could have done it—I never could!"

"We do thank you, Mr. Simpson—I can't tell you how much."

"You're under no obligation of thanks to me, madam. I brought the trouble with me."

"I couldn't see you—I couldn't see a thing through these trees and weeds—while all that shootin' was going on, my heart was in my mouth! When Frank came back I knew you'd got one of them, the thievin' scoundrels!"

"It was the one that took Frank," Eudora said, still gazing in that fixed stare of what emotion Simpson was not schooled enough in the subtleties of the human mind to read.

"He deserved it! If I ever saw murder, and worse than murder, in a man's face I saw it in his. I don't often trem-