“Now, look here, men!  If you want any more trouble we ’re here to accommodate you.  Fighting is our trade, and we don’t mind working at it.  But I wish to tell you right now, and straight off the handle, that you are simply making a parcel of fools of yourselves.  Slavin has been killed, and nine out of ten among you are secretly glad of it.  He was a curse to this camp, but because some of his friends and cronies—­thugs, gamblers, and dive-keepers—­accuse Bob Hampton of having killed him, you start in blindly to lynch Hampton, never even waiting to find out whether the charge is the truth or a lie.  You act like sheep, not American citizens.  Now that we have pounded a little sense into some of you, perhaps you’ll listen to the facts, and if you must hang some one put your rope on the right man.  Bob Hampton did not kill Red Slavin.  The fellow who did kill him climbed out of the back window of the Occidental here, and got away, while you were chasing the wrong man.  Mr. Wynkoop saw him, and so did your schoolteacher, Miss Spencer.”

Then Wynkoop stepped gamely to the front.  “All that is true, men.  I have been trying ever since to tell you, but no one would listen.  Miss Spencer and I both saw the man jump from the window; there was blood on his right arm and hand.  He was a misshapen creature whom neither of us ever saw before, and he disappeared on a run up that ravine.  I have no doubt he was Slavin’s murderer.”

No one spoke, the crowd apparently ashamed of their actions.  But Brant did not wait for any outward expression.

“Now, you fellows, think that over,” he said.  “I intend to post a guard until I find out whether you are going to prove yourselves fools or men, but if we sail in again those of you who start the trouble can expect to get hurt, and pay the piper.  That’s all.”

In front of the hotel porch he met his first sergeant coming out.

“What does the doctor say about Hampton?”

“A very bad wound, sir, but not necessarily fatal; he has regained consciousness.”

“Has Miss Gillis arrived?”

“I don’t know, sir; there’s a young woman cryin’ in the parlor.”

The lieutenant leaped up the steps and entered the house.  But it was Miss Spencer, not Naida, who sprang to her feet.

“Oh, Lieutenant Brant; can this be truly you!  How perfectly awful you look!  Do you know if Mr. Hampton is really going to die?  I came here just to find out about him, and tell Naida.  She is almost frantic, poor thing.”

Though Brant doubted Miss Spencer’s honesty of statement, his reply was direct and unhesitating.  “I am informed that he has a good chance to live, and I have already despatched word to Miss Gillis regarding his condition.  I expect her at any moment.”