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 Tom, "and I wanted to see you. You understand the country there."

He pulled out his pocket-book, and extracted a dirty half-page of lined paper, which was dated two months earlier from Painted Rock in Texas. I read it with difficulty, for it might have been written back-handed with a skewer. It ran thus—

",—This is to inform you that my late partner, your brother Jack Willett, was shot and killed a month back on Cow Creek by Colonel Briggs, mostly known as Cow Creek Briggs. They was alone when the difficulty occurred and Briggs is a fairly popular man and says your brother pulled on him first. Owin to this and my havin no right hand to speak of he's still on earth. But Briggs lies for if Jack had pulled on him first Briggs would have been dead, for he was very quick with his gun for an Englishman. And Briggs had his knife into him from the time Jack first struck the Rock—over a row they had about the morrils of the British Royal Family, and also over a claim in the California