“Watch Jerry Bent,” he said softly.  “You watch him, Denver, and you, Sandersen.  Me and Buck will take care of Cold Feet.  He may fight like a rat.  That’s the way with a coward when he gets cornered.”  Then he strode toward the door.

“How thick is Sally Bent with this schoolteaching gent?” asked Riley Sinclair of Mason.

“I dunno.  Nobody knows.  Sally keeps her thinking to herself.”

Larsen kicked open the door and at the same moment drew his six-shooter.  That example was also imitated by the rest, with the exception of Riley Sinclair.  He hung in the background, watching.

“Gaspar!” called Larsen.

There was a voice of answer, a man’s thin voice, then the sharp cry of a girl from the interior of the house.  Sinclair heard a flurry of skirts.

“Hysterics now,” he said into his mask.

She sprang into the doorway, her hands holding the jamb on either side.  In her haste the big white handkerchief around her throat had been twisted awry.  Sinclair looked over the heads of Mason and Denver Jim into the suntanned face that had now paled into a delicate olive color.  Her very lips were pale, and her great black eyes were flashing at them.  She seemed more a picture of rage than hysterical fear.

“Why for?” she asked.  “What are you-all here for in masks, boys?  What you mean calling for Gaspar?  What’s he done?”

In a moment of waiting Larsen cleared his throat solemnly.  “It’d be best we tell Gaspar direct what we’re here for.”

This seemed to tell her everything.  “Oh,” she gasped, “you’re not really after him?”

“Lady, we sure be.”

“But Jig—­he wouldn’t hurt a mouse—­he couldn’t!”

“Sally, he’s done a murder!”

“No, no, no!”

“Sally, will you stand out of the door?”

“It ain’t—­it ain’t a lynching party, boys?  Oh, you fools, you’ll hang for it, every one of you!”

Sinclair confided to Buck Mason beside him:  “Larsen is letting her talk down to him.  She’ll spoil this here party.”

“We’re the voice of justice,” said Judge Lodge pompously.  “We ain’t got any other names.  They wouldn’t be nothing to hang.”

“Don’t you suppose I know you?” asked the girl, stiffening to her full height.  “D’you think those fool masks mean anything?  I can tell you by your little eyes, Denver Jim!”

Denver cringed suddenly behind the man before him.

“I know you by that roan hoss of yours, Oscar Larsen.  Judge Lodge, they ain’t nobody but you that talks about ‘justice’ and ‘voices.’  Buck Mason, I could tell you by your build, a mile off.  Montana, you’d ought to have masked your neck and your Adam’s apple sooner’n your face.  And you’re Bill Sandersen.  They ain’t any other man in these parts that stands on one heel and points his off toe like a horse with a sore leg.  I know you all, and, if you touch a hair on Jig’s head, I’ll have you into court for murder!  You hear—­murder!  I’ll have you hung, every man jack!”