“He can’t see himself through because he is blind,” was the heavy answer.
There was a moment of shock, of hushed surprise, and then a voice burst forth: “Blind—they’ve blinded him, boys! The dagos have killed his sight. He’s blind, boys!”
A profane and angry muttering ran through the crowd, who were thirsty, hungry, and weary with watching.
Osterhaut held up the horseshoe which had brought Ingolby down. “Here it is, the thing that done it. It’s tied with a blue ribbon-for luck,” he added ironically. “It’s got his blood on it. I’m keeping it till Manitou’s paid the price of it. Then I’ll give it to Lebanon for keeps.”
“That’s the thing that did it, but where’s the man behind the thing?” snarled a voice.
Again there was a moment’s silence, and then Billy Kyle, the veteran stage-driver, said: “He’s in the jug, but a gaol has doors, and doors’ll open with or without keys. I’m for opening the door, boys.”
“What for?” asked a man who knew the answer, but who wanted the thing said.
“I spent four years in Arizona, same as Jowett,” Billy Kyle answered, “and I got in the way of thinking as they do there, and acting just as quick as you think. I drove stage down in the Verde Valley. Sometimes there wasn’t time to bring a prisoner all the way to a judge and jury, and people was busy, and hadn’t time to wait for the wagon; so they done what was right, and there was always a tree that would carry that kind o’ fruit for the sake of humanity. It’s the best way, boys.”
“This isn’t Arizona or any other lyncher’s country,” said Halliday, the lawyer, making his way to the front. “It isn’t the law, and in this country it’s the law that counts. It’s the Gover’ment’s right to attend to that drunken dago that threw the horseshoe, and we’ve got to let the Gover’ment do it. No lynching on my plate, thank you. If Ingolby could speak to us, you can bet your boots it’s what he’d say.”
“What’s your opinion, boss?” asked Billy Kyle of Gabriel Druse, who had stood listening, his chin on his breast, his sombre eyes fixed on them abstractedly.