The big ‘Piker’ examined the long brass cylinder, small of bore and old-fashioned in shape.  He slipped it into the Sharp rifle, and laughed grimly as he said—­

“A relic!”

Ransom’s face was impassive; Smoky Jack exhibited a derisive defiance.  Inwardly he was cursing himself for a fool in having kept the cartridge.  He had intended to throw it away as soon as he found himself outside.  But from the first he had wanted Mintie’s father to know that he knew! Primal again.  Pap would not forget to clean his rifle at the first opportunity; and then, without a word on either side, he would realise that the man who wanted his daughter was a true friend.

We may add that the breaking of the sixth commandment in no wise affected Smoky.  Jake Farge had been warned that he would be shot on sight if he made “trouble.”  Everybody in San Lorenzo County was well aware that it was no kind of use “foolin’” with Pap Ransom.  Jake—­in a word—­deserved what he had got.  Smoky would have drawn as true a bead upon a squatter disputing title to his land.  We don’t defend Mr. Short’s ethics, we simply state them.

The ‘Piker’ said quietly—­

“Anything to say, young feller?”

Smoky Jack made a gallant attempt to bluff a man who had played his first game of poker before Smoky was born.

“Yer dead right.  It is a relic of a big buck I killed with that ther gun las’ week.  Flopped into a mare’s nest, you hev!”

“That shell was fired to-day,” said the ‘Piker,’ authoritatively.  “The powder ain’t dry in it.  Boys,”—­he glanced round at the circle of grim faces—­“let’s take the San Lorenzy road.”

* * * * *

The squatters, reinforced by half a dozen men who had not entered the adobe, escorted their prisoners down the hill till they came to a large live oak, a conspicuous feature of the meadow beyond the creek.  The moon shone at the full as she rose majestically above the pines which fringed the eastern horizon.  In the air was a smell of tar-weed, deliciously aromatic; and the only sounds audible were the whispering of the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods and the tinkle of the creek on its way to the Pacific.

Smoky inhaled the fragrance of the tar-weed, and turned his blue eyes to the left, where, in the far distance, a tall pine indicated the north-west corner of his ranch.  Neither he nor Ransom expected to reach San Lorenzo that night.  They were setting out on a much longer journey.

Under the live oak Judge Lynch opened his court.  No time was wasted.  The squatters were impressed with the necessity of doing what had to be done quickly.  The big ‘Piker’ spoke first.

“Boys, ain’t it true that in this yere county there ain’t bin a single man executed by the law fer murder in the first degree?”

“That’s right.  Not a one!”

“And if a man has a bit o’ dough behind him, isn’t it a fact that he don’t linger overly long in San Quentin?”