“Curly’ll never let him go,” said one irrelevantly.  “Seems to me we better sen’ this Greaser off to the States, put him in a ’sylum, er somethin’.”

“Yes,” said the tall Texan; “and I like to know ef that ain’t a blame sight worse’n hangin’ a man?”

“That’s so,” assented several voices.  And indeed to these men, born and bred in the free life of the range, the thought of captivity was more repugnant than the thought of death.

“The lawyer feller, he ain’t to blame,” said one apologetically.  “He made things look right plain.  He ain’t no fool.”

“Well, I don’t know as he helt no aidge over ole Claib Benson,” said another argumentatively.  “Claib puts it mighty powerful.”

“Yes, but,” said the other eagerly, “Claib means fer hangin’ by the Co’te.”

“Shore,” said a voice.  “Now, I’m one o’ the jury, but I says in my own min’, ef we convict this yer man, we got to hang him right away anyway, ‘cause we ain’t got no jail, an’ we kain’t afford no guard to watch him all the time.  Now, he’d have to be hung right away, anyhow.”  This half apologetically.

“What do most o’ you fellers on the jury think?  Does this here crazy business go with you all?”

“Well, kin savvy,” replied the juror judicially.  “Some o’ the boys think it a leetle tough to hang a feller fer a thing he kain’t remember and that he didn’t never think was no harm.  It don’t look like the Greaser’d take any one right to where he would shore be convicted, ef he had of made this here killin’.”

“Well,” said a conservative soothingly, “let’s wait till to-morrer.  Let’s let the Co’te set another day, anyhow.”

“Yes, I reckon that’s right; yes, that’s so,” said others; “we’d better wait till to-morrer.”

A brief silence fell upon the gathering, a silence broken only by tinklings or shufflings along the bar.  Then, all at once, the sound of an excited voice rose and fell, the cry of some one out upon the gallery in the open air.  The silence deepened for one moment, and then there was a surge toward the door.

Far off, over the prairie, there came a little flat, recurrent sound, or series of sounds, as of one patting his fingers softly together.  It fell and rose and grew, coming rapidly nearer, until at length there could be distinguished the cracking and popping of the hoofs of running horses.  The sound broke into a rattling rumble.  There came across the still, keen night a wild, thin, high, shrilling yell, product of many voices.

“It’s the Bar O outfit, from the Brazos, coming in,” said some one.  The crowd pressed out into the air.  It opened and melted slightly.  The crowd at Curly’s shanty increased slightly, silently.  Inside, Curly and his friend still played cards.  The giant prisoner lay asleep upon the floor, stretched out on his thin native wool mattress, his huge bulk filling half the floor.

The rattle of many hoofs swept up to the door of the Cottage, where the restive, nervous horses were left standing while the men went in, their leader, a stocky, red-mustached man, bearing with him the rope which he had loosened from his saddle.  Having drunk, the leader smote upon the bar with a heavy hand.