"Now, look here, men! If you want any more trouble we 're here to

accommodate you. Fighting is our trade, and we don't mind working at

it. But I wish to tell you right now, and straight off the handle,

that you are simply making a parcel of fools of yourselves. Slavin has

been killed, and nine out of ten among you are secretly glad of it. He

was a curse to this camp, but because some of his friends and

cronies--thugs, gamblers, and dive-keepers--accuse Bob Hampton of

having killed him, you start in blindly to lynch Hampton, never even

waiting to find out whether the charge is the truth or a lie. You act

like sheep, not American citizens. Now that we have pounded a little

sense into some of you, perhaps you'll listen to the facts, and if you

must hang some one put your rope on the right man. Bob Hampton did not

kill Red Slavin. The fellow who did kill him climbed out of the back

window of the Occidental here, and got away, while you were chasing the

wrong man. Mr. Wynkoop saw him, and so did your schoolteacher, Miss

Spencer."

Then Wynkoop stepped gamely to the front. "All that is true, men. I

have been trying ever since to tell you, but no one would listen. Miss

Spencer and I both saw the man jump from the window; there was blood on

his right arm and hand. He was a misshapen creature whom neither of us

ever saw before, and he disappeared on a run up that ravine. I have no

doubt he was Slavin's murderer."

No one spoke, the crowd apparently ashamed of their actions. But Brant

did not wait for any outward expression.

"Now, you fellows, think that over," he said. "I intend to post a

guard until I find out whether you are going to prove yourselves fools

or men, but if we sail in again those of you who start the trouble can

expect to get hurt, and pay the piper. That's all."

In front of the hotel porch he met his first sergeant coming out.

"What does the doctor say about Hampton?"

"A very bad wound, sir, but not necessarily fatal; he has regained

consciousness."

"Has Miss Gillis arrived?"

"I don't know, sir; there's a young woman cryin' in the parlor."

The lieutenant leaped up the steps and entered the house. But it was

Miss Spencer, not Naida, who sprang to her feet.

"Oh, Lieutenant Brant; can this be truly you! How perfectly awful you

look! Do you know if Mr. Hampton is really going to die? I came here

just to find out about him, and tell Naida. She is almost frantic,

poor thing."




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