"The devil!" cried Philip, half drawing his revolver at the ferocious leer in the other"s face.
"Wait," exclaimed the man, "and see if I"m not right. The man who was responsible for the wreck back there is my deadliest enemy--has been for years, and now I"m even up with him. And I guess in the eyes of the law I"ve got the right to it. What do you say?"
"Go on," said Philip.
The snake-like eyes of the man burned with a dull flame and yet he spoke calmly.
"He came out here from England four years ago," he went on. "He was forced to come. Understand? He was such a devil back among his people--half a criminal even then--that he was sent out here on a regular monthly remittance. After that everything went the way of his younger brother. His father married again, and the second year he became even less cut off. He was bad--bad from the start, and he went from bad to worse out here. He gambled, fought, robbed, and became the head of a gang of scoundrels as dangerous as himself. He brooded over what he considered his wrongs until he went a little mad. He lived only to avenge himself. At the first opportunity he was prepared to kill his father and his step-mother. Then, a few weeks ago, he learned that these two were coming to America and that on their way to Vancouver they would pa.s.s through Bleak House Station. He went completely mad then, and planned to destroy them, and rob the train. You know how he and his gang did the job. After it was over and they had got the money, he let his gang go on ahead of him while he went back to the wreck of the sleeper.
He wanted to make sure that they were dead. Do you see?"
"Yes," said Philip tensely, "go on."
"And when he got there," continued the other, bowing his head as he filled an old briar pipe with tobacco, "he found some one else. It"s strange--and you may wonder how I know it all. But it"s true. Back in England he had worshipped a young girl. Like the others, she detested him; and yet he loved her and would have died for her. And in the wreck of the sleeper he found her and her father--both dead. He brought her out, and when no one was near carried her through the night to his horse. The knowledge that he had killed her--the only creature in the world that he loved--brought him back to sanity. It filled him with a new desire for vengeance--but vengeance of another kind. To achieve this vengeance he was compelled to leave her dead body miles out on the prairie. Then he hurried to overtake his comrades. As their leader he had kept possession of the money they had taken from the express car.
The division was to be made at the water hole. The gang was waiting for him there. The money was divided, and two of the gang rode ahead. The other two were to go in another direction so as to divide the pursuit.
The remittance man remained with them, and when the others had gone a distance he killed them both. He was sane now, you understand. He had committed a great crime and he was employing his own method of undoing it. Then he was going back to bury--her."
The man"s voice broke. A great sob shook his frame. When he looked up, Philip had drawn his revolver.
"And the remittance man--" he began.
"Is myself--Jim Blackstone--at your service."
The man turned his back to Philip, hunched over, as if bent in grief.
For a moment he stood thus. There followed in that same moment the loud report of a pistol, and when Philip leaped to catch his tottering form the glaze of death was in the outlaw"s eyes.
"I was going to do this--back there--beside her," he gasped faintly. A shiver ran through him and his head dropped limply forward.
Philip laid him with his face toward a rock and stepped out from his concealment. The girl had heard the pistol shot and was running up the trail.
"What was that?" she asked, when he had hurried to her.
"The last shot, sweetheart," he answered softly, catching her in his arms. "We"re going back to Billinger now, and then---home."