“You bet I did, Pap. My friends is my friends, an’ I’d do it ag’in,” she answered calmly.
“I don’t bear ye no grudge fer thet now, Kid, ’cause it’s too late. I got mine this time, an’ I’m goin’ out the way I always reckoned I would, with my boots on an’ facin’ the crack o’ the guns.”
As he talked, Hornby’s voice grew halting, and there were pauses of a few seconds between words. It was plain to all that he was weakening fast.
“May I try to do something for him, Judy?” begged Miss Briggs gently, as she bent over the wounded rustler.
“No!” Hornby put all the strength that he could summon into that one word. “Ye been lookin’ fer the man who war the leader of the rustlers. Heah he is! I’m thet man, and as it’s my dyin’ words, I beat ’em all at the game. Git ba—ack thar!” The rustler groped with uncertain fingers for his weapon, whereupon Judy laid a firm hand on his arm.
“No, Pap! You’ve done enough,” rebuked the girl. “You’ve said enough, too, an’ Judy Hornby never again kin hold her head up nor look honest folks in the face. They’ll say her Pap was a rustler an’—an’—”
“Judy! Please don’t,” begged Grace. “He is dying!”
“I—I reckon you’re right.” Judy fell to stroking the outlaw’s hair. “That’s all right, Pap. You’re my Pap. Miss Gray is right.”
“No! I got ter tell ye while I can. Judy, I ain’t yer Pap. Nor yer mother warn’t yer mother. I stole ye when ye war a little thing cause the man who was yer Pap had done me dirt. We raised ye, an’ Judy, we havin’ no children of our own, begun to like ye fer yerself an’ we kept ye, though at first we didn’t reckon on doin’ jest that. We reckoned on gettin rid—”
“No—ot my Pap?” stammered the girl. “Who, then—who is my Pap?” cried Judy. “Tell me! Ye got ter tell me! Who is my Pap?” Her voice rose threateningly, then sank almost to a whisper. “Pap, dear! Who is my real Pap?”