“He bled like a stuck pig!” said one of the men at last.  He was a ragged slouching creature with a splotched and bloated face half hidden by a bristling red beard.  He glanced at Gilmore for an uncertain instant out of a pair of small shifty eyes.  “It’s murder, ain’t it, boss?” he added.

“No doubt about that, Joe!” rejoined the gambler.

“I suppose it was robbery?” said the other man, who had not spoken before.

“Very likely,” answered the colonel.  “We have not examined the place, however; we shall wait for the proper officials.”

“Who do you want, Colonel?”

“Coroner Taylor, and I suppose the sheriff,” replied Harbison.

The man nodded.

“All right, I’ll bring them; and say, what about the prosecuting attorney?” as he turned to leave.

“Yes, bring Moxlow, too, if you can find him.”

The man hurried from the room.  Gilmore leaned against the counter and smoked imperturbably.  Joe Montgomery, with his great slouching shoulders arched, and his grimy hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, stared at the dead man in stolid wonder.  Colonel Harbison’s glance sought the same object but with a sensitive shrinking as from an ugly brutal thing.  A clock ticked loudly in the office; there was the occasional fall of cinders from the grate of the rusted stove that heated the place; these were sounds that neither Gilmore nor the colonel had heard before.  Presently a lean black cat stole from the office and sprang upon the counter; it purred softly.

“Hello, puss!” said the gambler, putting out a hand.  The cat stole closer.  “I guess I’ll have to take you home with me, eh?  This ain’t a place for unprotected females!” The cat crept back and forth under his caressing touch.

At the street-door Shrimplin appeared and disappeared, now his head was thrust into the room, and now his nose was flattened against the dingy show-windows; from neither point could he quite command the view he desired nor could he bring himself to enter the building; then he vanished entirely, but after a brief interval they heard his voice.  He was evidently speaking with some one in the street.  A little crowd was rapidly gathering about him, but it disintegrated almost immediately, his listeners abandoning him to hurry into the store.

“You must stand back, all of you!” said the colonel.  “Unless you are very careful you may destroy important evidence!”

The crowd assembled itself silently for the most part; here and there a man removed his hat, or made some whispered comment, or asked some eager low-voiced question of Gilmore or the colonel.  Men stood on boxes, on nail kegs, and on counters.  Except for the little circle left about the dead man on the floor, every vantage point of observation was soon occupied.  It was scarcely half an hour since Shrimplin had fallen speechless into Colonel Harbison’s arms, yet fully two hundred men had gathered in that long room or were struggling about the door to gain admittance to it.