“No, sir!  No funny business about our law!  This tribunal’s final.”

“I ain’t disputin’ that it’s final.  I ain’t talkin’ about law.  I was mentionin’ Justice.”

“The feller that loses is always gassin’ ’bout Justice.  When you win you don’t think there’s any flies on the Justice.”

“Ain’t had much experience with winnin’.  We all knows who wins in these yere Meetin’s.”

“Who?” But they turned their eyes on Mr. Bonsor, over by the door.

“Who wins?” repeated a Circle City man.

“The feller that’s got the most friends.”

“It’s so,” whispered Keith.

“——­same at Circle,” returned the up-river man.

McGinty looked at him.  Was this a possible adherent?

“You got a Push at Circle?” he inquired, but without genuine interest in the civil administration up the river.  “Why, ’fore this yere town was organised, when we hadn’t got no Court of Arbitration to fix a boundary, or even to hang a thief, we had our ‘main Push,’ just like we was ’Frisco.”  He lowered his voice, and leaned towards his Circle friend.  “With Bonsor’s help they ‘lected Corey Judge o’ the P’lice Court, and Bonsor ain’t never let Corey forgit it.”

“What about the other?” inquired a Bonsorite, “the shifty Push that got you in for City Marshal?”

“What’s the row on to-night?” inquired the Circle City man.

“Oh, Bonsor, over there, he lit out on a stampede ’bout Christmas, and while he was gone a feller by the name o’ Lawrence quit the game.  Fanned out one night at the Gold Nugget.  I seen for days he was wantin’ to be a angil, and I kep’ a eye on ’im.  Well, when he went to the boneyard, course it was my business, bein’ City Marshal, to take possession of his property fur his heirs!”

There was unseemly laughter behind the stove-pipe.

“Among his deeds and traps,” McGinty went on, unheeding, “there was fifteen hundred dollars in money.  Well, sir, when Bonsor gits back he decides he’d like to be the custodian o’ that cash.  Mentions his idee to me.  I jest natchrally tell him to go to hell.  No, sir, he goes to Corey over there, and gits an order o’ the Court makin’ Bonsor administrator o’ the estate o’ James Lawrence o’ Noo Orleens, lately deceased.  Then Bonsor comes to me, shows me the order, and demands that fifteen hundred.”

“Didn’t he tell you you could keep all the rest o’ Lawrence’s stuff?” asked the Bonsorite.

McGinty disdained to answer this thrust.

“But I knows my dooty as City Marshal, and I says, ‘No,’ and Bonsor says, says he, ‘If you can’t git the idee o’ that fifteen hundred dollars out o’ your head, I’ll git it out fur ye with a bullet,’ an’ he draws on me.”

“An’ McGinty weakens,” laughed the mocker behind the stove-pipe.

“Bonsor jest pockets the pore dead man’s cash,” says McGinty, with righteous indignation, “and I’ve called this yer meetin’ t’ arbitrate the matter.”