So long as Jack Allen had breath in his body, he would fight to keep
it there. His incredulity against the verdict swung to a tenacious
disbelief that it would really come to the worst. So long as he
was alive, so long as he could feel the weight of the dagger in his
sleeve, it was temperamentally impossible for him to believe that he
was going to die that day.

Plans he made and smoothed them in the dirt with his toe. If they did
not bind his arms... They had not tied Sandy's arms, he remembered;
and he wondered if a dagger concealed in Sandy's sleeve would have
made any essential difference in the result of that particular crime
of the Committee. He sickened at a vivid memory of how Sandy had
ridden away, just a week or so before; and of the appealing glance
which he had sent toward Bill's place when Shorty started to lead the
buckskin from before the prison tent with six men walking upon either
side and a curious crowd straggling after. Would a dagger in Sandy's
sleeve have made any difference?

Then his thoughts swung to the Mexican who had told him of the trick,
only the night before. It had amused Jack to experiment with his own
knife; and the very novelty of the thing had impelled him to slip his
dagger into the new hiding-place that morning when he dressed. The
Captain had not discovered it there--but would it make any difference?
It occurred to him that he need not die the death of dangling and
strangling at the end of the rope, at any rate; if it came to dying...
Jack became acutely conscious of the steady beat in his chest, and
immediately afterward felt the same throb in his throat; he could stop
that beating whenever he chose, if they did not bind his arms.

"Horse's ready, Captain," announced Shorty succinctly, thrusting his