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The expression of wonder which had come into the sheriff’s face at the beginning of this speech deepened into his old look of surly dissatisfaction. “And that’s all ye want?” he said gloomily. “Ye don’t want no friends–no lawyer? For I tell you, straight out, major, there ain’t no hope for ye, when the law once gets hold of ye in Sacramento.”

“That’s all. Will you do it?”

The sheriff’s face grew still darker. After a pause he said: “I don’t say ‘no,’ and I don’t say ‘yes.’ But,” he added grimly, “it strikes me we’d better wait till we get clear o’ these woods afore you think o’ your Sacramento lodgings.”

The major did not reply. The day had worn on, but the fire, now completely encircling them, opposed any passage in or out of that fateful barrier. The smoke of the burning underbrush hung low around them in a bank equally impenetrable to vision. They were as alone as shipwrecked sailors on an island, girded by a horizon of clouds.

“I’m going to try to sleep,” said the major; “if your men come you can waken me.”

“And if YOUR men come?” said the sheriff dryly.

“Shoot me.”

He lay down, closed his eyes, and to the sheriff’s astonishment presently fell asleep. The sheriff, with his chin in his grimy hands, sat and watched him as the day slowly darkened around them and the distant fires came out in more lurid intensity. The face of the captive and outlawed murderer was singularly peaceful; that of the captor and man of duty was haggard, wild, and perplexed.

But even this changed soon. The sleeping man stirred restlessly and uneasily; his face began to work, his lips to move. “Tom,” he gasped suddenly, “Tom!”

The sheriff bent over him eagerly. The sleeping man’s eyes were still closed; beads of sweat stood upon his forehead. He was dreaming.

“Tom,” he whispered, “take me out of this place–take me out from these dogs and pimps and beggars! Listen, Tom!–they’re Sydney ducks, ticket-of-leave men, short card sharps, and sneak thieves! There isn’t a gentleman among ’em! There isn’t one I don’t loathe and hate–and would grind under my heel, elsewhere. I’m a gentleman, Tom–yes, by God–an officer and a gentleman! I’ve served my country in the 9th Cavalry. That cub of West Point knows it and despises me, seeing me here in such company. That sergeant knows it–I recommended him for his first stripes for all he taunts me,–d–n him!”

“Come, wake up!” said the sheriff harshly.

The prisoner did not heed him; the sheriff shook him roughly, so roughly that the major’s waistcoat and shirt dragged open, disclosing his fine silk undershirt, delicately worked and embroidered with golden thread. At the sight of this abased and faded magnificence the sheriff’s hand was stayed; his eye wandered over the sleeping form before him. Yes, the hair was dyed too; near the roots it was quite white and grizzled; the pomatum was coming off the pointed moustache and imperial; the face in the light was very haggard; the lines from the angles of the nostril and mouth were like deep, half-healed gashes. The major was, without doubt, prematurely worn and played out.

The sheriff’s persistent eyes, however, seemed to effect what his ruder hand could not. The sleeping man stirred, awoke to full consciousness, and sat up.

“Are they here? I’m ready,” he said calmly.

“No,” said the sheriff deliberately; “I only woke ye to say that I’ve been thinkin’ over what ye asked me, and if we get to Sacramento all right, why, I’ll do it and give ye that day and night at your old lodgings.”

“Thank you.”

The major reached out his hand; the sheriff hesitated, and then extended his own. The hands of the two men clasped for the first, and it would seem, the last time.

For the “cub of West Point” was, like most cubs, irritable when thwarted. And having been balked of his prey, the deserter, and possibly chaffed by his comrades for his profitless invasion of Wynyard’s Bar, he had persuaded his commanding officer to give him permission to effect a recapture. Thus it came about that at dawn, filing along the ridge, on the outskirts of the fire, his heart was gladdened by the sight of the half-breed–with his hanging haversack belt and tattered army tunic–evidently still a fugitive, not a hundred yards away on the other side of the belt of fire, running down the hill with another ragged figure at his side. The command to “halt” was enforced by a single rifle shot over the fugitives’ heads–but they still kept on their flight. Then the boy-officer snatched a carbine from one of his men, a volley rang out from the little troop–the shots of the privates mercifully high, those of the officer and sergeant leveled with wounded pride and full of deliberate purpose. The half-breed fell; so did his companion, and, rolling over together, both lay still.

But between the hunters and their fallen quarry reared a cheval de frise of flame and fallen timber impossible to cross. The young officer hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, wheeled his men about, and left the fire to correct any irregularity in his action.

It did not, however, change contemporaneous history, for a week later, when Wynyard’s Bar discovered Major Overstone lying beside the man now recognized by them as the disguised sheriff of Siskyou, they rejoiced at this unfailing evidence of their lost leader’s unequaled prowess. That he had again killed a sheriff and fought a whole posse, yielding only with his life, was never once doubted, and kept his memory green in Sierran chronicles long after Wynyard’s Bar had itself become a memory.