like a curtain blown upward in the wind. The tawny- haired young
fellow was walking coolly down the aisle, the smoking revolver
pointing like an accusing finger toward the outlaw who lay
stretched upon his face, his fingers twitching.

Outside, rifles were crackling like corn in a giant popper.
Presently it slackened to an occasional shot. A brakeman,
followed by two coatless mail-clerks with Winchesters, ran down
the length of the train calling out that there was no danger.
The thud of their running feet, and the wholesome mingling of
their shouting struck sharply in the silence after the shooting.
One of the men swung up on the steps of the day coach and came
in.

"Hello, Park," he cried to the tawny haired boy. "Got one, did
yuh? That's good. We did, too got him alive. Think uh the
nerve uh that Wagner bunch! to go up against a train in broad
daylight. Made an easy getaway, too, except the feller we
gloomed in the express car. How's this one? Dead?"

"No. I reckon he'll get well enough to stretch a rope; he
killed a man, in here." He motioned toward the huddled figure in
the aisle. They came together, lifted the dead man and carried
him away to the baggage car. A brakeman came with a cloth and
wiped up the red pool, and Thurston pressed his lips tightly
together and turned away his head; he could not remember when
the sight of anything had made him so deathly sick. Once he
glanced slyly at the girl opposite, and saw that she was very
white under her tan, and that the hands in her lap were clasped
tightly and yet shook. But she met his eyes squarely, and