“Next he spoke up for you.  I ain’t goin’ to tell you what he said.  Only—­no other woman who ever lived ever had such tribute!  You had a champion, Jane, an’ never fear that those thick-skulled men don’t know you now.  It couldn’t be otherwise.  He spoke the ringin’, lightnin’ truth....Then he accused Tull of the underhand, miserable robbery of a helpless woman.  He told Tull where the red herd was, of a deal made with Oldrin’, that Jerry Card had made the deal.  I thought Tull was goin’ to drop, an’ that little frog-legged cuss, he looked some limp an’ white.  But Venters’s voice would have kept anybody’s legs from bucklin’.  I was stiff myself.  He went on an’ called Tull—­called him every bad name ever known to a rider, an’ then some.  He cursed Tull.  I never hear a man get such a cursin’.  He laughed in scorn at the idea of Tull bein’ a minister.  He said Tull an’ a few more dogs of hell builded their empire out of the hearts of such innocent an’ God-fearin’ women as Jane Withersteen.  He called Tull a binder of women, a callous beast who hid behind a mock mantle of righteousness—­an’ the last an’ lowest coward on the face of the earth.  To prey on weak women through their religion—­that was the last unspeakable crime!

“Then he finished, an’ by this time he’d almost lost his voice.  But his whisper was enough.  ‘Tull,’ he said, ’she begged me not to draw on you to-day.  She would pray for you if you burned her at the stake....But listen!...I swear if you and I ever come face to face again, I’ll kill you!’

“We backed out of the door then, an’ up the road.  But nobody follered us.”

Jane found herself weeping passionately.  She had not been conscious of it till Lassiter ended his story, and she experienced exquisite pain and relief in shedding tears.  Long had her eyes been dry, her grief deep; long had her emotions been dumb.  Lassiter’s story put her on the rack; the appalling nature of Venters’s act and speech had no parallel as an outrage; it was worse than bloodshed.  Men like Tull had been shot, but had one ever been so terribly denounced in public?  Over-mounting her horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion shook her very soul.  It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man.  It was hot, primitive instinct to live—­to fight.  It was a kind of mad joy in Venters’s chivalry.  It was close to the wrath that had first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon her.

“Well, well, Jane, don’t take it that way,” said Lassiter, in evident distress.  “I had to tell you.  There’s some things a feller jest can’t keep.  It’s strange you give up on hearin’ that, when all this long time you’ve been the gamest woman I ever seen.  But I don’t know women.  Mebbe there’s reason for you to cry.  I know this—­nothin’ ever rang in my soul an’ so filled it as what Venters did.  I’d like to have done it, but—­I’m only good for throwin’ a gun, en’ it seems you hate that....Well, I’ll be goin’ now.”