You're the whitest man I ever run up ag'inst. You've done me better than my
own brothers. My own brothers," he repeated, a look of pain and bitterness
knitting those wonderfully pencilled brows above the big eyes. "Fer my
part, I'm sick o' livin' this-a-way. When you're gone, an' I'm here agin by
my lonesome, I'm as apt as not to put the muzzle o' my gun in my mouth an'
blow the top o' my head off--that's how I feel most o' the time. I tell you
what you do, Dan: you jest put these here on me an' take me down to
Garyville--er plumb on to Asheville--an' draw your money. That'll square up
things fer you an' that pore little gal. What say ye?"

Into Kerry's sanguine face there surged a yet deeper red; his shoulders
heaved; the tears sprang to his eyes; and before his host could guess the
root of his emotion the Irishman was sobbing, furiously, noisily, turned
away, his head upon his arm. The humiliation of it ate into his soul; and
the tooth was sharpened by his own misdeeds. How many times had he looked
at the great, kindly creature across the fire there and calculated the
chances of getting him to Garyville?

Andy's face twisted as though he had bitten a green persimmon. "Aw! Don't
_cry!_" he remonstrated, with the mountaineer's quick contempt for
expressed emotion. "My Lord! Dan, don't--"

"I'll cry if I damn please!" Kerry snorted. "You old fool! Me a-draggin'
you down to Garyville! Me, that's loved you like a brother! An' never had
no thought--an' never had no thought--Oh, hell!" he broke off, at the
bitter irony of the lie; then the sobs broke forth afresh. To deny that he
had come to arrest the outlaw was so pitifully futile.

"So ye won't git the money that-a-way?" Andy's big voice ruminated, and a
strange note of relief sounded in it; a curious gleam leaped into the