Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-06-02

gently. Wal, she wouldn't marry me any.
Way after I've laid out that Maverick-an'
he's simply got to die!'
1t was hard for Shorty Regain to think
that, though Pearl Bassett had seemed to
love him, she was not partizan enough to
share in his wish for revenge Women were
strange creatures. Perhaps even now she
was on the way to warn Steve that his ene
nv was free and would soon be upon his
trail. She baffled his understanding. Too
bad! But in year or SO she might change
her mind. He prayed that she might; but
nothing could change him in his fierce lust
for the life of the man who had sworn him
into prison.
SHORTY REGAIN yawned, stretched his
~ saddle-wearied legs, and sat up. Gray
streaks were beginning to appear above the
mesa at the opening of the canon; but 1t
was not yet light enough for him to pick his
way up the side gulch among the rocks and
up through the brush to the water hole where
last night his aching eyes had made out the
campfire of Steve Mcfarland.
For three days Regain had scanned the
desert and the foothills for the smoke of that
campfire. For three days he had cursed his
luck and cleaned his Winchester in his fruit
less search for the lone horseman whom he
sand, mesquit, and heat-stabbed mesas that
Law to the southwark And now he had To-
Gated his man!
Shorty shivered little in the chill morn
ing air. Two years in prison makes man
little sensitive to early morning canon drafts.
He drew his blanket closer about his Shout
ders and with his chin on his palms stared up
into the gulch with unseeing eyes, just as he
had stared from the edge of his prison cot,
gazing blankly at the wall before him. Some
how he had felt that vitascopic scene OF the
canon trail would be the true picture. A
loud 3Hello!" would bring the Sheriff upon
one elbow,-Shorty drew the line at shoot
ing sleeping man,-but before the hand OF
the startled man could reach his holster
bullet would send him back upon his blanket
to sleep into eternity.
Shorty shivered again. 1t was not pleas
ant to meet death only half awake; but the
man deserved it: he had courted just such
a death when he swore him into the pen for
fifteen years. And, more than that, he
knew that the Sheriff was out for him now
and had vowed to take him alive or dead. 1t
was merely Shorty's good luck that he had
doubled upon MacFarland's trail, and that
the pursuer, though he did not know it, had
become the pursued.
1t was light enough to travel now. Regain
SHOOK the SdnQ out OF MS Dld1lkeL, IOlQcd IL
neatly, and carefully rolled it up. Then he
washed his face at the water hole, and by the
aid of his pocket mirror he combed his hair
and brushed it neatly. If he should merely
wing his man and should be shot down HIM
self, he would look clean and fit when borne
into town, and that was great point with
so tidy man as Shorty Regain. He parted
his hair as close to the middle as the dim
light of four in the morning would permit.
Then he rose and went over to where his
hobbled mustang was cropping the scant
blades of withered bunch grass. A few min
utes' further preparation found him ready
for the trail. He would breakfast later,
maybe out of the Sheriff's kit. There would
be can of condensed milk, he knew, and
that was good; for he liked condensed milk
in his coffee.
1t was little darker in the deep gulch,
and his horse stumbled repeatedly over the
rough spots. 1t would be an hours ride to
the Sheriff's camp; but there would be
plenty of time to get there before sunrise.
The fresh hoofmarks, readily noted here
and there by his range-trained eyes, would
lead him to the place. Up through the
stragglv pinons his pony climbed steadily.
In the gray sky overhead all but a few of the
brightest stars had faded from view. Once
coyote skunk across his path; but no
other living creature entered his vision.