guilty ones to leave. Waco Johnson checked them off, also. He told them to run along. There were others that he marched to the railroad, beyond the heat of the burning building, and searched with portentous eye.
Waco called a council of war over their case, and considered what to do. It wouldn't be right to shoot all of them summarily, for there must be some who had borne no active hand in the cowardly business against Simpson. They could not expect the innocent to proclaim the guilty, in fear of future vengeance, so they debated the matter gravely, not knowing just what to do. At that point in the deliberations Wallace Ramsey returned from what all thought to be the last services Tom Simpson ever would require of his friends. To inquiries, Wallace replied:
"No, he ain't exac'ly dead, but they broke his arm, and they shot him through the side, and they creased him just over the ear. The doctor says they ain't any bullets in him. They went clean through."
The doctor wouldn't say what his chances were. If the bullet that creased him hadn't busted his skull bone, he might live. Anyhow, it had pressed the bone down agin his brains and he didn't know a thing. He was down there in the back room of that little eatin' house; Eudora, she was with him.
"The hell she is!" said Waco, brightening up so greatly he might have had assurance that Tom Simpson was through the rapids, and coming safely to land.
Well, considering it all, Waco said, he guessed they'd collected enough toll.
"If he's alive, he'll go on livin'," he declared. "That
