"I don"t mind telling you, Mr. Squires," he blurted out at last, "that we hadn"t the faintest idea that this fellow Camp was as desperate a character as all this. We looked upon him as a rather harmless, soft-headed guy,--but, my G.o.d, he turns out to be one of the slickest all-round crooks in the United States. No wonder he managed to give us the slip all these years. It only goes to show how even the best of us can be fooled in a man."

"That"s right," agreed Harry. "It certainly does show how you can be fooled in a man."

"When I get back home and tell "em at headquarters what a slick duck he was, they"ll throw a fit. Why, by Gosh, we all thought he was a nut,--a plain nut."

"Far be it from me," said Harry, "to speak ill of either the living or the dead."

"It"s a wonder he didn"t up and blow the head off this old Rube when he found he was about to be cornered."

Harry took that moment to relight his pipe, and then abruptly said "Good night" to the gentleman from Sandusky.

As he rejoined the group in front of Lamson"s, Marshal Crow was saying:

"I"m mighty glad Harry Squires had sense enough not to say in the _Banner_ that as soon as Jake Miller found out that the jig was up, he took the law in his own hands, and lynched himself."

THE END