“Judge Dyer was tellin’ Willie Kern, one of my best an’ steadiest boys—­ Dyer was tellin’ him how there was a ditch opened near Willie’s home lettin’ water through his lot, where it hadn’t ought to go.  An’ Willie was tryin’ to git a word in to prove he wasn’t at home all the day it happened—­which was true, as I know—­but Willie couldn’t git a word in, an’ then Judge Dyer went on layin’ down the law.  An’ all to onct he happened to look down the long room.  An’ if ever any man turned to stone he was thet man.

“Nat’rully I looked back to see what hed acted so powerful strange on the judge.  An’ there, half-way up the room, in the middle of the wide aisle, stood Lassiter!  All white an’ black he looked, an’ I can’t think of anythin’ he resembled, onless it’s death.  Venters made thet same room some still an’ chilly when he called Tull; but this was different.  I give my word, Miss Withersteen, thet I went cold to my very marrow.  I don’t know why.  But Lassiter had a way about him thet’s awful.  He spoke a word—­a name—­I couldn’t understand it, though he spoke clear as a bell.  I was too excited, mebbe.  Judge Dyer must hev understood it, an’ a lot more thet was mystery to me, for he pitched forrard out of his chair right onto the platform.

“Then them five riders, Dyer’s bodyguards, they jumped up, an’ two of them thet I found out afterward were the strangers from Stone Bridge, they piled right out of a winder, so quick you couldn’t catch your breath.  It was plain they wasn’t Mormons.

“Jengessen, Carter, an’ Wright eyed Lassiter, for what must hev been a second an’ seemed like an hour, an’ they went white en’ strung.  But they didn’t weaken nor lose their nerve.

“I hed a good look at Lassiter.  He stood sort of stiff, bendin’ a little, an’ both his arms were crooked an’ his hands looked like a hawk’s claws.  But there ain’t no tellin’ how his eyes looked.  I know this, though, an’ thet is his eyes could read the mind of any man about to throw a gun.  An’ in watchin’ him, of course, I couldn’t see the three men go fer their guns.  An’ though I was lookin’ right at Lassiter—­lookin’ hard—­I couldn’t see how he drawed.  He was quicker ’n eyesight—­thet’s all.  But I seen the red spurtin’ of his guns, en’ heard his shots jest the very littlest instant before I heard the shots of the riders.  An’ when I turned, Wright an’ Carter was down, en’ Jengessen, who’s tough like a steer, was pullin’ the trigger of a wabblin’ gun.  But it was plain he was shot through, plumb center.  An’ sudden he fell with a crash, an’ his gun clattered on the floor.

“Then there was a hell of a silence.  Nobody breathed.  Sartin I didn’t, anyway.  I saw Lassiter slip a smokin’ gun back in a belt.  But he hadn’t throwed either of the big black guns, an’ I thought thet strange.  An’ all this was happenin’ quick—­you can’t imagine how quick.