"Tell me some more. What about Yuma?"
"Felt o' his bunk ... lookin' tuh see...." Gimlet had to pause for a fit of coughing so violent that it hardly seemed his fast-ebbing strength could stand it. When he finished, his breath came in short and painful gasps. "The ... the house," he managed to say. He struggled hard, fighting the Grim Specter every step of its advancing way. There was more he wanted desperately to tell. The old man was upon that borderline between the living and the dead. From his position, he seemed to see things in their true light. He looked beyond the mask and saw a man he knew could be trusted. His gnarled, blue-veined hand clutched that of the Lone Ranger while he fought hard to make a last statement. The masked man leaned close to him, to catch the dying words if they were uttered. But whatever Gimlet was about to say went with him across the last threshold. His hand clutched convulsively and then relaxed. He coughed once, and brought a flood of his life's blood to his mouth, and then lay back.
The masked man felt and found no pulse. He closed the old man's fingers and laid them across the bony chest.
"Yuma," he muttered. "This was Yuma's bunk. I wonder who Yuma is and where I'll find him?"
His thoughts came to a lurching halt when a sharp voice snarled a curse with cataclysmic violence.
"Yuh damned murderin' skunk, I'll kill yuh fer this!" It was Yuma who shouted from the doorway.
