"Likely he'd be carrying my stuff about on him!" said she, contemptuous of her own keen interest.
"Get out a warrant to search Butts' premises," said a voice in the crowd.
"McGinty and Johnson are down there now!"
"Think he'd leave anything layin' round?"
Maudie pressed still closer to the beleaguered Butts.
"Say, if I make the boys let you go back to Circle, will you tell me where you've hid my money?"
"Ain't got your money!"
"Look at 'im," whispered Charlie, still so terrified he could hardly stand.
"Butts ain't borrowin' no trouble."
And this formulating of the general impression did Butts no good. As they had watched the calm demeanour of the man, under suspicion of what was worse, in their eyes, than murder, there had come over the bystanders a wave of that primitive cruelty that to this hour will wake in modern men and cry as loud as in Judean days, or in the Saga times of Iceland, "Retribution! Let him suffer! Let him pay in blood!" And here again, on the Yukon, that need of visible atonement to right the crazy injustice of the earth.