A man was going down the opposite side of the street, and Len looked across at him, squinting his eyes sharply.
“Amos Baggs, eh?” he said bitterly. “Still here.”
“Yeah, he’s still here, Len. But he ain’t prosecutor no more. Still runnin’ a law office. Nick Collins beat him bad at the election after you left. I reckon Amos is still sour over that election.”
“He ain’t changed much,” Len said slowly.
“His kind don’t change, Len. He shore can say mean things in a court room.”
“Don’t I know it,” bitterly. “You don’t know how I wished for a six-shooter then, Johnny. I wanted to fill his whole body with lead. Mebbe I still want to. But if I ever do anythin’ they could send me back there for, they’ll never take me alive. I know what that place is now. You probably wonder why I came back, Johnny. Sometimes I wonder too. Lack of brains, mebbe. No sane man would ever come back here, after what happened to me. But I paid the penalty, didn’t I? And my kid is here,” he added softly. “My kid, Johnny. Oughtn’t that bring a man back?”
“Shore,” said Johnny thoughtfully. He thought he knew why Len Ayres came back. Perhaps the kid had something to do with it, but it was the money that had brought him back.
Nothing had been proved, except that Len had robbed the Lobo Wells bank and half-killed the cashier. They found Len’s hat there on the floor, where it fell off in his getaway. That hold-up only netted him seven thousand, but there were others, a lone-handed train robbery, which netted the bandit about ten thousand dollars, a stage robbery of five thousand dollars. Of course, they were unable to fix the blame for all of these on Len, but his description fitted that of the bandit.
Len had had no chance to spend any of the money; so the people of Manzanita Valley knew he had cached it, and that he would come back and get it when his five years were up. Len’s wife had married the cashier of the bank, where Len had left his hat, but she had died from pneumonia a short time later.
Len had managed to beat his way back from the penitentiary and was in Lobo Wells without a cent in his pocket. The town was not changed; the same people were there, except those who had died off.