"That's fair enough," assented Learned Counsel. "We'll try the railroad, and we'll try my client at the same time."
"Write out the summons," said Doc Tomlinson. "Send word down to them railroad folks to come up here and be tried. It's time we knew who was boss, them or us. Go ahead, you're a lawyer; fix it up."
They ignored Dan Anderson, their long-time leader in all matters of public interest! Eventually it was Doc Tomlinson himself who drafted the document, one of the most interesting of the Territorial records—a summons whereby civilization was called before the bar of primitive man. These presents being signed and sealed, a messenger was sought for their delivery. None better offered than a half-witted sheepherder commonly known as Willie, who chanced to be in town by buckboard from the lower country. This much accomplished, the meeting at Whiteman's corral broke up.
Learned Counsel took his client by the arm and led him away. "You need not say much to your lawyer," he remarked; "but while I don't ask you to incriminate yourself even with your counsel, I only want to say that a Girl is, in a great many decisions of the upper courts, held to be an extenuating circumstance." He watched the twitch of Dan Anderson's face, but the latter would not speak.
"I don't know just where the girl exists now in this case," went on Learned Counsel, "or how; but she's somewhere. It is not wholly necessary that you should specify."
"My God!" broke out Dan Anderson. "I wanted—I hoped so much? It was my opportunity, my first—"
"That's enough," said Learned Counsel. "You needn't say any more. Every fellow has something of that sort in his life. What brought McKinney here, and Doc Tomlinson, and all the rest?"
"Ribbons!" said Dan Anderson. "Tintypes!"
"Precisely. And who shall cast the first stone? If the boys knew—"
"But they don't know, they can't know. Do you think I'd uncover her name, even among my friends—make her affairs public? No."