Jerry volunteered the information.  “They’re all wondering why you wasn’t strung up today, when they got so much evidence agin’ you.  Also they’re thinking that the boys played plumb foolish in turning you over to this stranger, Sinclair, to guard.  But they’re waiting for Sheriff Kern to come over from Woodville an’ nab you in the morning.  They’s some that says that they won’t wait, if it looks like the law is going to take too long to hang you.  They’ll get up a necktie party and break the jail and do their own hanging.  I heard all them things and more, Jig.”

John Gaspar looked uncertainly from one to the other of his friends.

“You’ve got to go!” cried Sally.

“I’ve got to go,” admitted Cold Feet in a whisper.

“I’ve got Meg saddled for you already.  She’s plumb gentle.”

“Just a minute.  I’ve forgotten something.”

“You don’t mean you’re going back into that room where Sinclair is?”

“I won’t waken him.  He’s sleeping like the dead.”

Jig turned away from them and hurried back to his room.  Having opened and closed the door softly, he went to a chest of drawers near the window and fumbled in the half-light of the low-burning lamp.  He slipped a small leather case into the breast pocket of his coat, and then stole back toward the door, as softly as before.  With his hand on the knob, he paused and looked back.  For all he knew, Sinclair might be really awake now, watching his quarry from beneath those heavy lashes, waiting until his prisoner should have made a definite attempt to escape.

And then the big man would rise to his feet as soon as the door was closed.  The picture became startlingly real to John Gaspar.  Sinclair would slip out that window, no doubt, and circle around toward the horse shed.  There he would wait until his prisoner came out on Meg, and then without warning would come a shot, and there would be an end of Sinclair’s trouble with his prisoner.  Gaspar could easily attribute such cunning cruelty to Sinclair.  And yet there was something untested, unprobed, different about the rangy fellow.

Whatever it was, it kept Gaspar staring down into the lean face of Sinclair for a long moment.  Then he went resolutely back into the living room and faced Sally Bent; Jerry was already waiting outdoors.

“I’m not going,” said Gaspar slowly.  “I’ll stay.”

Sally cried out.  “Oh, Jig, have you lost your nerve ag’in?  Ain’t you got no courage?”

The schoolteacher sighed.  “I’m afraid not, Sally.  I guess my only courage comes in waiting and seeing how things turn out.”

He turned and went gloomily back to his room.

12

With the first brightness of dawn, Sinclair wakened even more suddenly that he had fallen asleep.  There was no slow adjusting of himself to the requirements of the day.  One prodigious stretching of the long arms, one great yawn, and he was as wide awake as he would be at noon.  He jerked on his boots and rose, and not until he stood up, did he see John Gaspar asleep in the big chair, his head inclining to one side, the book half-fallen from his hand, and the lamp sputtering its last beside him.  But instead of viewing the weary face with pity, Sinclair burst into sudden and amazed profanity.