"But--this is only a boy, Vance. He couldn't have been more than twenty-
five years old."

"That's all."

"But I've heard of him for ten years, very nearly. And always as a man-
killer. It can't be Black Jack."

"I said the same thing, but it's Black Jack, well enough. He started out
when he was sixteen, they say, and he's been raising the devil ever
since. You should have seen them pick him up--as if he were asleep, and
not dead. What a body! Lithe as a panther. No larger than I am, but they
say he was a giant with his hands."

He was lighting his cigarette as he said this, and consequently he did
not see her eyes close tightly. A moment later she was able to make her
expression as calm as ever.

"Came into town to see his baby," went on Vance through the smoke.
"Little year-old beggar!"

"Think of the mother," murmured Elizabeth Cornish. "I want to do
something for her."

"You can't," replied her brother, with unnecessary brutality. "Because
she's dead. A little after the youngster was born. I believe Black Jack
broke her heart, and a very pleasant sort of girl she was, they tell me."

"What will become of the baby?"