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of his problem was solved, and he dismissed it from his mind. He did not go down to the bend of the stairs to learn the result of his shot. He knew. There was no time to lose. His life hung upon a split second. What he did now he had not planned; but he did it as if he had thought it out in detail and carefully rehearsed it. He translated lightning-like thoughts into lightning-like action. Every move counted. Jamming Bell's six-shooter into his belt for emergencies, he stepped to the door of the armoury, flung it open, caught up Ollinger's shotgun leaning against the wall within arm's reach. Turning he sped through the hall with strange swiftness, with strange noiselessness, gauging his quick, staccato steps to the exact reach of his ankle chains. Like a flitting shadow, he curved into the courtroom, glided across the floor, and halted against the wall by the east window. From the moment Bell fell dead on the back stairs until now, the clock of eternity had ticked perhaps ten seconds.

Back of him at the other side of the room stood the round table, the cards scattered on it, the jack of hearts on the floor, Bell's overturned chair. Within the chamber was the stillness of death; without, the stillness of the sunlit noon. The Kid cocked the hammers of his shotgun. He peeked furtively out of the window into the road. For a moment he stood there against the wall, gun poised, face set, every muscle taut, like an ambushed panther about to spring.

A little distance down the road from the courthouse on the long shady porch of La Rue's store Ollinger met Jimmy Dolan. He was glad to see Jimmy Dolan. He clapped him on the back.

"Don't know a man in Lincoln County I'd rather take