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 "Well, I ain't crowin' over nobody in petic'lar, but I've took care of myself. You'll be stayin' down at Malvina's, will you?"

"I've sent word to Mr. Winch that I'm to be found there."

Uncle Boley's manner of assurance and sprightliness fell from him at the mention of Winch. He became at once serious and silent, as if the overhanging threat pressed upon his heart.

"Yes, and if he gits you, Texas, I'll stoop down and I'll pick up your gun, and I'll foiler him to the rim of daylight but what I put a bullet in his heart!"

Texas lifted his head with a new feeling of pride, and looked the old man straight in the bright, blue eyes.

"It means a great deal to a man to have a friend who will go that far for him, Uncle Boley, sir!"

Texas went away from Uncle Boley's shop feeling unaccountably lonely in spite of the evidence of confidence and affection that the old man had shown. He could not put the shadow of Dee Winch's threat against his life out of his mind. More than once in the passage between shop and hotel he caught himself unconsciously watching from side to side, unconsciously straining for the sound of a footstep behind him.

It was a disquieting thing to live with a sentence