“The verdict of the jury is that we hang Jack Allen for killin’ Texas and Rawhide, and for bein’ a mean, ornery cuss, anyway.”

The Captain turned coldly to the prisoner.  “You hear the verdict.  The Committee believes it to be just.”

He looked at the group near the door.  “Mr. Wilson,” he called maliciously, “you will now be given an opportunity to collect from the prisoner what he owes you.”

“Jack Allen don’t owe me a cent!” cried Bill Wilson hotly, shouldering his way to the open space before the Captain.  “But there’s a heavy debt hanging over this damned Committee—­a debt they’ll have to pay themselves one day at the end of a rope, if there’s as many honest men in this town as I think there is.

“I helped form the first Vigilance Committee, boys.  We did it to protect the town from just such men as are running the Committee right now.  When crimes like this can be done right before our eyes, in broad daylight, I say it’s time another Committee was formed, to hang this one!  Here they’ve got a man that they know, and we all know, ain’t done a thing but what any brave, honest man would do.  They’ve gone through a farce trial that’d make the Digger Injuns ashamed of themselves; and they’ve condemned Jack Allen, that’s got more real manhood in his little finger than there is in the dirty, lying carcasses of the whole damned outfit—­they’ve condemned him to be hung!

“And why!  I can tell yuh why—­and it ain’t for killing Texas and Rawhide—­two as measly, ornery cusses as there was in town—­it ain’t for that.  It’s for daring to say, last night in my place, that the Committee is rotten to the core, and that they murdered Sandy McTavish in cold blood when they took him out and hung him for killing that greaser in self-defense.  It’s for speaking his mind, the mind of an honest man, that they’re going to hang him.  That is, they’ll hang him if you’ll stand by and let ’em do it.  I believe both these boys told a straight story.  I believe them three was trying to pull off a daylight robbery, and Jack shot to save the kid.

“Now, men, see here!  I for one have stood about all I’m going to stand from this bunch of cutthroats that’ve taken the place of the Committee we organized to protect the town.  To-night I want every man that calls himself honest to come to my place and hold a mass meeting, to elect a Committee like we had in the first place.  I want every man—­”

“Bill, you’re crazy!” It was Jack, white to the lips in sheer terror for Wilson, Jack who refused to blench at his own dire strait, who sprang up and clapped a hand over the mouth that was sealing the doom of the owner.  “Take him out, Jim, for God’s sake!  Take him—­Bill, listen to me, you fool!  What was it you were telling me, there in your own doorway, to-day?  About not thinking out loud?  You can’t save me by talking like that!  These men—­those that don’t hate me—­are so scared of their own necks that they wouldn’t lift a finger to save a twin brother.  Take him out, boys!  Bill doesn’t mean any harm.”  He tried to smile and failed utterly.  “He likes me, and he’s—­he’s—­”