Dunn, furiously.

"I reckoned I'd leave that for you," said Brace coolly. "If he'd killed
me, and if he'd even covered me with his rifle, he'd been sure to let
daylight through me at double the distance. I shouldn't have been any
better off, nor you either. If I'd killed HIM, it would have been your
duty as sheriff to put me in jail; and I reckon it wouldn't have broken
your heart, Jim Dunn, to have got rid of TWO rivals instead of one.
Hullo! Where are you going?"

"Going?" said Dunn hoarsely. "Going to the Carquinez Woods, by God! to
kill him before her. I'LL risk it, if you daren't. Let me succeed, and
you can hang ME and take the girl yourself."

"Sit down, sit down. Don't be a fool, Jim Dunn! You wouldn't keep the
saddle a hundred yards. Did I say I wouldn't help you? No. If you're
willing, we'll run the risk together, but it must be in my way. Hear me.
I'll drive you down there in a buggy before daylight, and we'll surprise
them in the cabin or as they leave the wood. But you must come as if
to arrest him for some offense--say, as an escaped Digger from the
Reservation, a dangerous tramp, a destroyer of public property in the
forests, a suspected road agent, or anything to give you the right
to hunt him. The exposure of him and Nellie, don't you see, must be
accidental. If he resists, kill him on the spot, and nobody'll blame
you; if he goes peaceably with you, and you once get him in Excelsior
jail, when the story gets out that he's taken the belle of Excelsior for
his squaw, if you'd the angels for your posse you couldn't keep the boys
from hanging him to the first tree. What's that?"

He walked to the window, and looked out cautiously.