ketched. Here is a man who says he is Henry Gledware--though God
knows if that's so; he comes galloping up to the door just as we are
in the midst of a game. I stakes all my share of the spoils on the
game, and Brick Willock is in a fair way to win it, that I admit,
but in comes this here spy--"

The prisoner in a frenzied voice disclaimed any purpose of spying.
That morning, he had driven the last wagon of the train, containing
his invalid wife and his stepdaughter--for the child lying on the
table was his wife's daughter. At the alarm that the first wagon
had been attacked by Indians, he had turned about his horses and
driven furiously over the prairie, he knew not whither. All that
day he had fled, seeing no one, hearing no pursuing horse-beat. At
night his wife, unable, in her weak condition, to sustain the
terrible jolting, had expired. Taking nothing from the wagon but
his saddle, he had mounted one of the horses with the child before
him, and had continued his flight, the terrific wind at his back.
Unaware that the wind had changed, he had traversed horseback much
of the distance traveled during the day, and at about two in the
morning--that is to say, about all hour ago--seeing a light, he had
ridden straight toward it, to find shelter from the storm.

The prisoner narrated all this in nervous haste, though he had
already given every particular, time and again. His form as well
as his voice trembled with undisguised terror, and indeed, the red
and cruel eyes fastened contemptuously on him might have caused a
much braver man than Gledware to shudder visibly.

"Well, pard," said the leader of the band, waiting until he had
finished, "you can't never claim that you ain't been given your say,