“No, Jimmie,” came the assurance very softly.  “I don’t give a damn for the reward and I don’t forget.  Pull yourself together, Jimmie.”

“Then here it is, an’ I’ll give you my word, s’elp me Gawd, that every little bit of it is like I’m tellin’ you.  I ain’t stringin’ you, Buck, an’ I am puttin’ myself in your hands, like one friend with another.  That’s right, ain’t it?”

“That’s right, Jimmie.  Go ahead.”

“They had me in the pen, then; you knowed that, Buck?  Run me in, by Gawd, because I happened to be havin’ a drink with a man named Stenton an’ a man named Cosgrove an’ a dirty Mex as was all crooked an’ was wanted for somethin’ they pulled off back down there ...  I don’t know rightly what it was, damn if I do, Buck!  But they wanted somebody, an’ they got the deadwood on them jaspers, an’ me bein’ seen with ’em, they put me across, too.  Put me across three years ago, Buck!  An’ it was hell, jes’ hell, that’s all.  Hell for a man like me, Buck, as is used to sleepin outdoors an’ the fresh air blowin’ over the big ranges, an’ horses an’ things.  An’ ... well, I stood it for three years, Buck.  Three years, man!  Think o’ that! You don’t know what it means.  An’ then, when I couldn’t stand it no longer,” and his voice dropped suddenly and the look of the hunted ran back into his eyes, “I broke jail.  An’ I got this.”

He touched his fingers gingerly to the bandaged side, wincing even with the gesture.

“Two bullets,” he muttered.  “Colt forty-fives.  An’ I been like this nine days.  Or ten, I ain’t sure.  An’ nights, Buck.  The nights ...  Gawd!”

Thornton, his lips tightening a little, watched the man and for a moment said nothing.  And then, suddenly, his voice commanding the truth: 

“Don’t hold back anything, Jimmie,” he said.  “It’ll be all over the country in a week, anyway.  How’d you make your get-away?  Did you have to kill anybody?”

He had his answer in the silence which for ten seconds Clayton’s twitching lips hesitated to break.  When spoken answer came it was broken down into a whisper.

“I ...  I wasn’t goin’ to hurt anybody, Buck.  Hones’ to Gawd, I wasn’t.  An’ then, then I got hold his gun, an’ I seen he was goin’ to fight for it, an’ I ...  I had to shoot!  I didn’t go to kill him, Buck!  An’ he shot me firs’ with the other gun ... you oughta see them holes in my side!... an’....”  He stopped abruptly, and then, a little defiance sweeping up into his eyes, rushing into his voice, he ended sulkily, “The son of a ——­ had it comin’ to him!”

For a long time Buck Thornton, sunk into a deep, thoughtful silence, said nothing.  Jimmie’s account of an adventure of this kind was sure to be garbled; considering it in an attempt to get to the truth at the bottom of it was an occupation comparable to that of staring down into muddy water in search of a hidden white pebble.  He knew Jimmie Clayton.  He knew him as perhaps Clayton did not know himself.