"If I sign under pressure, it won't hold good," blustered Gentleman
John.
"Yo' won't be in this country to contest it," Kid Wolf drawled. "This won't in any way repay Red fo' the loss of his brothah, but it's something. Yo' can do as yo' like about signin' it."
"Then of course I won't sign!" snarled the other.
"The honest cattlemen at Skull will probably hang yo'," reminded The
Kid softly.
Beads of sweat suddenly stood out on Gentleman John's forehead. His own guilty conscience told him that what The Kid said was true. His gimlet eyes grew big with fear. There was a long silence.
"If—if I sign, yo'll let me go?" he quavered.
The Texan's face grew hard and stern.
"No," he said. "I haven't any right to do that. Justice demands that yo' face the ones yo' have wronged. And justice has always been my guidin' stah. I'm a soldier of misfohtune, fightin' fo' the undah dawg. I'm takin' yo' to Skull, sah."
Gentleman John groaned in terror. All the blustering bravado had gone out of him.
"I can't promise yo' yo' life," Kid Wolf went on. "I can, howevah, recommend banishment instead of death, and mah word carries some weight in Skull, undah the new ordah of things. If yo' sign—thus doin' right by Red Morton, whom yo' wronged—I'll do what I can to save yo' from the rope, but I can't promise that yo'll escape it. Are yo' signin'?"