Jim Hutch and Jimmie Greeley drifted down to Rattlesnake at sundown and joined the laughter-weakened group perched upon Charlie’s snake fence.

“The man grows more daft every year.  ’Tis strange, what charms the Widow Schmitt.”  Old Jimmie merely growled in his beard.  “Charlie, mon,” he called, “the mare is warm and weary, and so’s yoursel’.  Come on to town for a bit.”

Charlie stayed overlong at the miners’ haunts in Rattlesnake and it was very late when he started back to his cabin, carrying in one limp, hot hand a jug which he guarded zealously from harm during his unsteady progress.

The men still sat over the card tables when the first daylight crept over the mountains.  Jimmie Greeley was raking in a jackpot, grinning fiendishly at the dour Jim Hutch when they heard heavy, running feet outside.  The door crashed open and a frightened, half-grown lad shouted: 

“Where’s the sheriff?  Charlie Price has been hung!”

“What!”

“On a tree near the Widow Schmitt’s.  I saw him.  I know well the sailor coat that he wears — and his best red-topped boots.  Where’s the sheriff?”

“Over at Ah Quong’s, the Chinee store on the edge of town.”  The boy ran off.  Old Jim Hutch rose impressively to his feet.

“Friends, the man ye hae laughed at all day — is dead.  The man ye hae always laughed at — and yet, who was it that lent ye gold when ye had none?  Yea, the gold ye thought it not worth ye’r while to return.  Who was ever ready to warm you at his bit fire in winter or to cool ye’re whuskey-hot throat with water from his cool spring in summer?

“Who was it that brought his mare into his own kitchen when it snowed, and fed her the rice and beans he went without?  Who was it that the Widow Schmitt waits for year after year, with half the ould fools in Placer dancin’ after her?”

That was too much for old man Greeley.

“Because he was indifferent-like.  When ye want a woman, run away f-r-r-om her and she’ll run after.”

“Why did ye na do it, then, Jeems?”

“Faith an’ I did, but bein’ ahl dressed up as I was in me coat, she couldn’t see me suspenders to tell was I comin’ or goin’!” Jim Hutch turned from him witheringly.

“Who was it staked ye for a new prospectin’ trip, an’ let his own mine go unworked?  Who nursed ye when ye were lyin’ seeck unto death, an’ no one would come nigh on account of the smallpox scare?  Old Charlie Price.”

A boy whirled about to face the window, but not before one uncontrollable sob had sounded through the quiet room.

“Who was it,” went on the old Scotchman gently, “found the wee bairn that was lost, last summer; that followed the Indians for thirty miles on his Leezie-mare and got the babe from out the wickiup of White Beaver?  Charlie Price.

“Who came bringing it haeme laughing, on the saddle pommel while he sang to it songs from ower seven seas, which we did blush to hear, in a voice to be heard twa miles about?  And ’twas only the bairn’s mother who thought to thank him.