Buck shook his head slowly and affectionately placed a heavy hand on his friend's shoulder. "Frenchy, won't you ever forget it? It hurts me to see you this way so much. It's over twenty years now an' day after day I've grieved to see you so unhappy. You paid him for it in yore own way. Can't you forget it now?"

"Yes; I killed him, an' slow. He never thought a man could make th' payment so hard, not even his black heart could realize it till he felt it," Frenchy replied, slowly and calmly. "He took th' heart out of me; he killed my wife and made my life a living hell. All I had worth living for went that day, an' if I could kill him over again every day for a year it wouldn't square th' score. I reckon I ain't built like other men. You never heard me whimper. I kept my poison to myself an' tried to do the best that was in me. An' you ain't never heard me say what I'm going to tell you now. I never believed in hunches, but something tells me that I'll leave all this behind me before another day passes. I felt it somehow when we left th' ranch an' it's been growing stronger every hour since. If I do pass out to-morrow, I want you to be glad of it, same as I would be if I could know. I'm going back to th' line now an' watch them fellers. So long."

The two men, bosom friends for thirty years, looked in each other's eyes as they grasped hands, and it was Buck's eyes that grew moist and dropped first. "So long, Frenchy—an' good luck, as you see it."

The foreman watched his friend until lost in the darkness and he thought he heard him singing, but of this he was not sure. He turned and stared at the fire for a minute, silent, immovable, and then breathed heavily.

"I never saw anybody carry a grief so long, never," he soliloquized. "I reckon it sort of turned his brain, coming so sudden an' in such a damnable way. I know it made me see red for a week. If I had only stayed there that day! When he got Trendley in th' Panhandle I hoped he would change, an' he did for a while, but that was all. He lived for that alone, an' since then I reckon he's felt he hadn't nothing to do with his life. He has been mixed up in a bunch of gun-arguments since then; but he didn't have no luck. Well, Frenchy, I hate to lose a friend like you, but here's better luck to-morrow, luck as you see it, friend!"

He kicked the fire together and was about to add fuel when he heard two quick shots and raised his head to listen. Then a ringing whoop came from the front and he recognized Johnny's voice. He heard Red call out and Johnny reply and he smiled grimly as he went towards the sounds. "Reckon somebody tried to get in that shack, like a fool. He must 'a been disgusted. How that Kid shore does love a fight!"