"He's dead!" Lou replied; and there was no sorrow in her voice.
"And I'm alive!" Jim declared contentedly. "He only creased me." He sat up suddenly by his own strength. For the first time, he appeared to notice his daughter and Jack Reeves. He spoke briskly now, and his voice had its accustomed firmness.
"Help me up, Jack," he bade his son-in-law. And then, a minute later, when he stood firmly on his feet again, he turned to Lou, and spoke softly.
"I'm going to make you very happy, to make up for what you have suffered. And I'll start by giving you back the daughter you lost twelve years ago." He nodded toward the girl, who approached.
"Nell," he ordered, "I want you to take this lady to your room, and tell her who you are. Go now, both of you, and have a talk. Jack and I will come soon. We have something to attend to first."
The women yielded to the masterful air of the man they both loved, and went away together to that talk in which there would be many kisses and the mingling of happy tears.
No sooner were the women gone than Jim Maxwell faced the sheriff of Kalmak, who, throughout the excitement, had kept his attention unswervingly fixed on the prisoner, with an eye to possible didoes. But before Jim Maxwell could speak, he was interrupted by the local official, who detached himself from the group about the body of Dan McGrew, and now approached.
"You got him, stranger," he remarked to Jim, in a congratulatory tone. "And he mighty near got you. Pretty shootin' by cripes! And I suppose, Mister, you understand you're my prisoner?"
"Certainly," was the indifferent answer. "But I sha'n't try to get away, and there's something I want to have attended to right now. It has to do with my son-in-law, Jack Reeves here, who is accused of a crime he didn't commit. I want to prove his innocence, and there's a chance I may be able to do it. Dan McGrew killed Sam Ward. I know it. I want everybody else to know it. I'm hoping that somewhere among his things, or on him, there'll be the proof to connect him with the crime."
The sheriff of Kalmak protested against the possibility, and spoke concerning Jack's possession of the knife-handle. In answer, Jim made clear the reasoning by which he had come to suspect his enemy of Sam Ward's murder.