"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."