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magnanimous spirit. The pathos of the Kid's situation softened his heart and he felt only pity for the slim youth, pale from months of imprisonment, bound hand and foot like a mad beast, yet bearing up with cheerful fortitude and smiling bravely as death drew nearer hour by hour, day by day, with the slow momentum of inevitability.

The old Murphy store in which the Kid was held prisoner was the largest building in Lincoln. Of adobe brick, covered with smooth adobe stucco, it was two stories in height and stood on the south side of Lincoln's single street near the western limits of town. It had been Murphy's citadel as well as his place of business in the days of his prosperity, and its solidity and imposing proportions seemed to connote his importance and power. If earthly tidings could have reached the spirit land, it would doubtless have rejoiced the ghost of the old feud leader to learn that Billy the Kid, who had been his most inveterate enemy, and whose relentless hatred had done so much to bring his plots to naught, was at last captive in the old Murphy fortress and was soon to meet his doom in the shadow of its massive walls.

With Murphy's death and the passing of his power and fortune, the old building had been transformed into the courthouse and at periodical sessions of court was a scene of bustling activity, its rooms filled with lawyers and clerks and its corridors crowded with litigants from the remotest corners of Lincoln County. But in the long intervals between judicial sittings it gathered dust and cobwebs in its silent and deserted halls.

The Kid was quartered in the courtroom, a great, bare chamber sixty feet long by fifty wide that occupied the entire east side of the second story and was lighted by six windows, two in front overlooking the street, two at