"Swain turned state's evidence," said Pete, curtly. "He'll go free, I
suppose. Fill up your glass, partner. Can see you're thirsty yet."

This was to Gregg, who had purposely poured out a drink of the sheriff's
own chosen dimension to see if the latter would notice; this remark fixed
his suspicions. It was certain that the manhunter was after him, but again,
in scorn, he accepted the challenge and poured a stiff dram.

"That's right," nodded the sheriff. "You got nothing on your shoulders. You
can let yourself go, Vic. Sometimes I wish"--he sighed--"I wish I could do
the same!"

"The sneaky coyote," thought Gregg, "he's lurin' me on!"

"Turned state's evidence!" maundered Lew Perkins. "Well, they's a lot of
'em that lose their guts when they're caught. I remember way back in the
time when Bannack was runnin' full blast--"

Why did not some one shut off the old idiot before he was thoroughly
started? He might keep on talking like the clank of a windmill in a steady
breeze, endlessly. For Lew was old-seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five--he
himself probably did not know just how old--and he had lived through at
least two generations of pioneers with a myriad stories about them. He
could string out tales of the Long Trail: Abilene, Wichita, Ellsworth,
Great Bend, Newton, where eleven men were murdered in one night; he knew
the vigilante days in San Francisco, and early times in Alder Gulch.

"Nobody would of thought Plummer was yaller, but he turned out that way,"
droned on the narrator. "Grit? He had enough to fit out twenty men. When
Crawford shot him and busted his right arm, he went right on and learned to