“There’s plenty that need it—­if the Committee only had sense enough to pick ’em out and leave the rest alone,” growled Bill, going from table to table, tipping and testing for other legs that wobbled.

Jim sensed the rebuff in his tone and went back to the door, around which a knot of men engaged in desultory conjectures while they waited expectantly.  A large tent that Perkins had found convenient as a temporary jail for those unfortunates upon whom his heavy hand fell swiftly, stood next to Bill’s place; and it spoke eloquently of the manner in which the Committee then worked, that men gathered there instinctively at the first sign of trouble.  For when the Committee went out after culprits, it did not return empty-handed, as the populace knew well.  Zealous custodians of the law were they, as Bill had said; and though they might have exchanged much of their zeal for a little of Bill’s sense of justice (to the betterment of the town), few of the waiting crowd had the temerity to say so.

Up the street, necks (whose owners had not thought it worth while to wade through the sand to the scene of the shooting) were being craned towards the flat behind the town, where the Captain and a few of his men had hurried at the first shot.

“They’re comin’,” Jim announced, thrusting his head into the gambling hall and raising his voice above the sound of the boss’s nail-driving.

“Well—­what of it?” snapped Bill.  “Why don’t you yell at me that the sun is going to set in the west to-night?” Bill drove the head of a four-cornered, iron nail clean out of sight in a table top.  And Jim prudently withdrew his head and turned his face and his attention towards the little procession that was just coming into sight at the end of the rambling street, with the crowd closing in behind it as the water comes surging together behind an ocean liner.

Jim worshiped his boss, but he knew better than to argue with him when Bill happened to be in that particular mood, which, to tell the truth, was not often.  But in five minutes or less he had forgotten the snub.  His head popped in again.

“Bill!”

There may be much meaning in a tone, though it utters but one unmeaning word.  Bill dropped a handful of nails upon a table and came striding down the long room to the door; pushed Jim unceremoniously aside and stood upon the step.  He was just in time to look into the rageful, blue eyes of Jack Allen, walking with a very straight back and a contemptuous smile on his lips, between the Captain and one of his trusted lieutenants.

Bill’s fingers clenched suggestively upon the handle of the hammer.  His jaw slackened and then pushed itself forward to a fighting angle while he stared, and he named in his amazement that place which the padres had taught the Indians to fear.

The Captain heard him and grinned sourly as he passed on.  Jack heard him, and his smile grew twisted at the tone in which the word was uttered; but he still smiled, which was more than many a man would have done in his place.