such a yaller-hearted skunk, sheriff, that it makes me ashamed of bein'
a man!"

"They's only one thing I misdoubt," said the sheriff. "How'd that sort
of a gent ever get the nerve to murder a man like Quade? Quade wasn't
no tenderfoot, and he could shoot a bit, besides."

"Speaking personal, sheriff, I don't think he done it, now I've had a
chance to go over the evidence."

"Maybe he didn't, but most like he'll hang for it. The boys is dead set
agin' him. First, he's a dude; second, he's a coward. Sour Creek and
Woodville wasn't never cut out for that sort. They ain't wanted
around."

That speech made Riley Sinclair profoundly thoughtful. He had known
well enough before this that there were small chances of Jig escaping
from the damning judgment of twelve of these cowpunchers. The statement
of the sheriff made the belief a fact. The death sentence of Jig was
pronounced the moment the doors of the jail at Woodville clanged upon
him.

They struck the trail to Sour Creek and almost immediately swung off on
a branch which led south and west, in the opposite direction from the
creek. It was a day of high-driving clouds, thin and fleecy, so that
they merely filtered the sunlight and turned it into a haze without
decreasing the heat perceptibly, and that heat grew until it became
difficult to look down at the blazing sand.

Now the trail climbed among broken hills until they reached a summit.