“Oh, say!  You don’t mind if I talk to ’em?” Bill gritted his teeth at having to put the sentence in that favor-seeking tone, but he did it, nevertheless.

The Captain scowled under his black, slouch hat.  “I’ve give strict orders not to let anybody inside the tent till after the trial,” he said shortly.

“Oh, that’s all right.  I’ll talk to ’em through the door,” Bill agreed equably.  “Jack owes me some money.”

The Captain muttered unintelligibly and passed on, and Bill chose to interpret the mutter as consent.  He strolled over to the tent, joked condescendingly with the guard who stood before it, and announced that the Captain had said he might talk to the prisoners.

“I did not,” said the Captain unexpectedly at his shoulder.  “I said you couldn’t.  After the trial, you can collect what’s coming to you, Mr. Wilson.  That is,” he added hastily, “in case Allen should be convicted.  If he ain’t, you can do as you please.”  He looked full at the guard.  “Shoot any man that attempts to enter that tent or talk to the prisoners without my permission, Shorty,” he directed, and turned his back on Bill.

Bill did not permit one muscle of his face to twitch.  “All right,” he drawled, “I guess I won’t go broke if I don’t get it.  You mind what your Captain tells you, Shorty!  He’s running this show, and what he says goes.  You’ve got a good man over yuh, Shorty.  A fine man.  He’ll weed out the town till it’ll look like grandpa’s onion bed—­if the supply of rope don’t give out!” Whereupon he strolled carelessly back to his place, and went in as if the incident were squeezed dry of interest for him.  He walked to the far end of the big room, sat deliberately down upon a little table, and rewarded himself for his forbearance by cursing methodically the Captain, the Committee of which he was the leader, the men who had witlessly given him the power he used so ruthlessly as pleased him best, and Jack Allen, whose ill-timed criticisms and hot-headed freedom of speech had brought upon himself the weight of the Committee’s dread hand.

“Damn him, I tried to tell him!” groaned Bill, his face hidden behind his palms.  “They’ll hang him—­and darn my oldest sister’s cat’s eyes, somebody’ll sweat blood for it, too!” (Bill, you will observe, had reached the end of real blasphemy and was forced to improvise milder expletives as he went along.) “There ought to be enough decent men in this town to—­”

“Did you git to see Jack?” ventured Jim, coming anxiously up to his boss.

The tone of him, which was that hushed tone which we employ in the presence of the dead, so incensed Bill that for answer he threw the hammer viciously in his direction.  Jim took the hint and retreated hastily.

“No, damn ’em, they won’t let me near him,” said Bill, ashamed of his violence.  “I knew they’d get him; but I didn’t think they’d get him so quick.  I sent a letter down by an Injun this morning to his pardner to come up and get him outa town before he—­But it’s too late now.  That talk he made last night—­”