it without any foolishness."

"I can't," Willock declared doggedly.

"Oh, yes; yes, you can, Brick. You see, we can't 'tend to no infant
class, and I ain't hard-hearted enough to leave a five-year-old girl
to die of hunger on the prairie; nor do I mean to take her to no
town or stage-station as a card for to be tracked by. Oh, yes, you
can, Brick, and now's the time."

"Red," exclaimed Willock desperately, "I tell you fair, and I tell
you foul, that this little one lives as long as I do."

"And what do you aim to do with her, eh, Brick?"

Willock made no reply. He had formed no plans for his future, or
for that of the child; but his left arm closed more tightly about
her.

"Now, Brick," said Red slowly, "this ain't the first time you have
proved yourself no man for our business, and I call Kansas to
witness you've brought this on yourself--"

Without finishing his sentence, Red swiftly raised his arm and fired
pointblank at Willock's head as it was defined above the sleeping
form. Though famed as an orator, Red understood very well that, at
times, action is everything, and there is death in long speaking.
He was noted as a man who never missed his mark; and in the Cimarron
country, which belonged to no state and therefore to no court,
extensive and deadly had been his practise, without fear of