For a moment Boone remained motionless. Between him and the man across from him swam spots of red; then words came with a coldly affronting yet quiet ferocity:
"I am not surprised, but I've done what decency demanded. I ... gave you your chance ... and you repudiated it ... like the charlatan you are. This man shall die ... but it was your duty and your right ... to know first."
He turned on his heel and opened the door, and the man in the smoking jacket gazed after him in amazement. Evidently, the truculent visitor was not himself, and there was no virtue in quarrelling with a temporary madman. Boone knew only that he had invoked the law and the law had rebuffed him. He could not see that his reception, however just his mission, was inevitable since he had invited it with insult.
Back at his room he found another guest awaiting him. It was Joe Gregory, who had also come from the hills. Boone had reached that point at which surprise ends, and to this man, who was a kinsman and a deputy sheriff in Marlin County, he gave as cursory a greeting as though he had come only from the next street.
But Joe's grave face, in which character and sense spoke from every strongly drawn lineament, was disturbed, and he went without preamble to his point. Down there in the hills trouble was brewing, and among both Gregories and Carrs a restive feeling stirred. Fellows walked with chips on their shoulders as though each side were seeking to invite from the other some overt act of truce-breaking. Joe had sought to analyze the causes of this seemingly chance rebirth of long-quiet animosities. He had learned of Saul's return, but Saul was lying low and most men did not know of his presence. It must be, then, that from his hiding place that intriguer was inciting a spirit of truculence in the Carrs to which the Gregories were automatically responding. If that went on it meant the breaking out of the "war" afresh—and a renewal of bloodshed. The bearer of tidings ended his narrative with an appeal based on strong trust.
"Boone, thar's jest one man kin quiet our boys down and stop 'em short of mortal mischief, I reckon. They all trusts you."
"Will they all follow me?"
"Straight inter hell, they will!"
"And yet you think"—Boone looked full into the direct eyes of the other with a glint of challenge in his own—"yet you think I ought to quiet them instead of leading them?"
"Leading them which way, Boone? Whatever ther rest aims at, you an' me, we stan's fer law and peace, don't we? That's what you've always drilled into me, like gospel."