"Make your words few and to the point, Colonel. This is no time for speech-making," warned a voice from the crowd. "We want to get hold of the skunk who was willing to falsely swear away the lives of two boys."
"My words will be few and to the point," Fremont began, his clear penetrating voice reaching every ear in the crowd. "Skoonly will confess everything, if you will spare his neck. He appears to have been but the tool of the other two men; and we will need his testimony to make out a case against them and to prove to the satisfaction of all, the innocence of the two boys. Under these circumstances, it would seem to be best to allow him to go free, providing he makes a clean breast of everything he knows concerning this case."
"And further providin'," supplemented Ham, "that he be warned never ag'in tew show his cowardly face in Sacermento City or any minin'-camp in Calaforny, under penalty of instant hangin'."
"An' that he be given a hoss-licken, jest afore lettin' him go," added a roughly dressed miner, standing near the inner edge of the circle.
Growlingly, like a hungry dog driven from a bone, the crowd at length agreed to this disposal of Skoonly; and the wretched man, with much faltering and many terrified glances around the enclosing circle of grim faces, told how, for a thousand dollars in gold-dust, he had agreed to help Quinley and Ugger out with his testimony, if they needed it; how he and the two scoundrels had planned out the whole thing the night before and were on the lookout for the boys that morning; how he had remained in a near-by saloon, with his manufactured broken arm all ready, waiting for a summons from the two men; and how, at last, the summons had come and he had given in his testimony, according to agreement. He declared that the two men had told him that they only wished to frighten the two boys into giving up something, he did not know what, that really belonged to them, and had assured him there would be no danger of getting the boys hanged, that they would be sure to yield before it got to that point. About the murder of the miner he knew nothing, except that Spike Quinley and Bill Ugger had told him that they had killed the man themselves, and had showed him the money-belt, still heavy with gold-dust, that they had taken from him—
"Great guns!" broke in Ham excitedly, at this moment, "if we ain't plum forgot them tew villains," and he made a mad break through the crowd in the direction of the spot where he had left Quinley and Ugger.
In an instant the wildest excitement prevailed; and hundreds of men were rushing about excitedly, looking for the two scoundrels. But Quinley and Ugger were wise in their wickedness, and seeing, with fear-enlightened eyes, the results of the advent of Hammer Jones and Colonel Fremont, had taken advantage of the excitement attending the examination of Skoonly, to disappear so suddenly and completely, that, although Sacramento City was searched all that day and that night, as with a fine-toothed comb, not a sign nor hair of either man could be found; and the enraged crowd had to be satisfied with giving Skoonly the promised "hoss-licken," and running him out of town the next morning, with a warning never to show his cowardly face on their streets again, unless he was looking for the job of dancing the hangman's hornpipe at the end of a rope.
The excitement and the confusion and the swift scattering of the crowd, attending the search for the two scoundrels, of course ended the trial of Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph for the murder of John Stackpole; and they stood free and worthy men in the sight of all people once more—and with the skin map still in their possession.
"Great Moses! but I was glad to see you, Ham!" declared Thure, as he gripped his big friend's hand, after some of the excitement had quieted down.
"Glad! Glad is no name for my feelings, when I saw your great body loom up by the side of the alcalde," and Bud gripped his other hand.