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asked.
    â€œSubstantially.”
    â€œDamned shame the kid didn’t learn anything,” Gamble said. “Thief, let us be for a spell. It seems me and the defense attorney have some things to talk over.”
    Houston called for a stool, and one was provided. Then the door to the cell unlatched when a lever was pulled by the guard in the receiving area, and Temple pushed the door open and sat on the stool next to Gamble’s bunk.
    â€œHow’re you feeling?”
    â€œI’m feeling, so it beats the alternative.”
    â€œThey tell me you were damned close to dying from loss of blood.”
    Gamble shrugged.
    â€œAll right, let’s get down to business,” Houston said. “Do you have any money?”
    â€œNow I believe you’re a lawyer.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter if you don’t. Your case intrigues me and I’ll defend you anyway. But my family has to eat just like anybody else’s, so it’s always better when I get paid. But to make this proper, you need to give me something of value.”
    â€œI don’t have a dime.”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be money.”
    Gamble hesitated. “There are only two objects of any real value in this world,” he said. “One is my father’s fiddle, and it is in a pawnshop in Caldwell, Kansas. The other is an old Manhattan revolver which is being held in safekeeping for me by the boy Andrew Farquharson at the hardware store on Oklahoma Avenue. I could send word that it should be given to you as collateral on my debt.”
    â€œI would not ask you for anything of such sentimental value,” Houston said. “Besides, I have many fine revolvers, and am in no need of a curiosity from the war. It can be anything of value, even little value, so that I can duly report that you have retained my services.”
    â€œI have this,” he said, and pulled the picture postcard of Doolin from his shirt pocket. “I paid twenty-five cents for it. It is smudged now with my own blood and is worth somewhat less, I would think.”
    â€œThat will do,” Houston said. He took the card and examined it briefly before slipping it into the inside pocket of his black coat. “It is, also, I should say, a fitting reminder of what is at stake.”
    â€œTake the pawn ticket as well,” Gamble said. “For safekeeping, if nothing else.”
    â€œAll right,” Houston said. “If you insist.”
    â€œI’ve never had a defense attorney before,” Gamble said. “Never got close enough to a jail or a courtroom to have a trial. How is this supposed to work?”
    â€œYou are going to tell me what happened and I am going to defend you to the best of my ability, within the confines of the truth.”
    â€œWhat is there to tell?” Gamble asked. “I killed two of the bounty-hunting cousins—one up on Cottonwood Creek and the other in the middle of Oklahoma Avenue. They seemed determined to kill me.”
    â€œThey had that right, because you were a fleeing felon and they had a writ for your arrest,” Houston said. “In 1872, the United States Supreme Court gave bounty hunters the power to cross state lines, to kick open the door of your house without a warrant, to make arrests on Sunday, and to kill felons if necessary in order to bring them back.”
    â€œSplendid.”
    â€œYou knew the cousins were attempting to serve a writ?”
    â€œOf course,” Gamble said. “Why else would I run?”
    â€œYou were outnumbered four to one,” Houston said. “If there was some misunderstanding, then we could argue that you feared for your life from unknown menacing parties.”
    â€œBut that would be a lie,” Gamble said.
    â€œI understand. So, there is no defense.”
    â€œAm I going to swing from the end of a rope in the capital of Oklahoma Territory? I don’t even like Oklahoma. I didn’t think there was a state