The men [pulling the women away from Blanco, and getting them out partly by violence and partly by coaxing] Here! come out of this.  Let him alone.  Clear the courthouse.  Come on now.  Out with you.  Now, Sally:  out you go.  Let go my hair, or I’ll twist your arm out.  Ah, would you?  Now, then:  get along.  You know you must go.  Whats the use of scratching like that?  Now, ladies, ladies, ladies.  How would you like it if you were going to be hanged?

[At last the women are pushed out, leaving Elder Daniels, the Sheriff’s brother Strapper Kemp, and a few others with Blanco.  Strapper is a lad just turning into a man:  strong, selfish, sulky, and determined.]

Blanco [sitting up and tidying himself]—­

     Oh woman, in our hours of ease. 
     Uncertain, coy, and hard to please—­

Is my face scratched?  I can feel their damned claws all over me still.  Am I bleeding? [He sits on the nearest bench].

Elder Daniels.  Nothing to hurt.  Theyve drawn a drop or two under your left eye.

Strapper.  Lucky for you to have an eye left in your head.

Blanco [wiping the blood off]—­

    When pain and anguish wring the brow,
    A ministering angel thou.

Go out to them, Strapper Kemp; and tell them about your big brother’s little horse that some wicked man stole.  Go and cry in your mammy’s lap.

Strapper [furious] You jounce me any more about that horse, Blanco Posnet; and I’ll—­I’ll—­

Blanco.  Youll scratch my face, wont you?  Yah!  Your brother’s the Sheriff, aint he?

Strapper.  Yes, he is.  He hangs horse-thieves.

Blanco [with calm conviction] He’s a rotten Sheriff.  Oh, a rotten Sheriff.  If he did his first duty he’d hang himself.  This is a rotten town.  Your fathers came here on a false alarm of gold-digging; and when the gold didn’t pan out, they lived by licking their young into habits of honest industry.

Strapper.  If I hadnt promised Elder Daniels here to give him a chance to keep you out of Hell, I’d take the job of twisting your neck off the hands of the Vigilance Committee.

Blanco [with infinite scorn] You and your rotten Elder, and your rotten Vigilance Committee!

Strapper.  Theyre sound enough to hang a horse-thief, anyhow.

Blanco.  Any fool can hang the wisest man in the country.  Nothing he likes better.  But you cant hang me.

Strapper.  Cant we?

Blanco.  No, you cant.  I left the town this morning before sunrise, because it’s a rotten town, and I couldn’t bear to see it in the light.  Your brother’s horse did the same, as any sensible horse would.  Instead of going to look for the horse, you went looking for me.  That was a rotten thing to do, because the horse belonged to your brother—­or to the man he stole it from—­ and I don’t belong to him.  Well, you found me; but you didn’t find the horse.  If I had took the horse, I’d have been on the horse.  Would I have taken all that time to get to where I did if I’d a horse to carry me?