At the door, the clergyman paused.
"Can you give me any message—to those who sent me?"
"You can tell them—first, that Whitewash Bill will be taken alive; second, there will be no lynching."
The Rev. Mr. Northcote beamed.
"There's a big mob thinks otherwise, I'm pretty sure, Major. But what Manitou-pewabic says is pretty sure to go. The rest of us are satisfied."
And he closed the door softly behind him.
IV
At dawn, two days after Mr. Northcote's visit, a despatch rider clattered into barracks with word that Cranbrook had again cornered Whitewash Bill, this time at a point fifteen miles south of the Piegan Crossing.
This put an end to a terrible period of suspense, which had held Hector inactive at Broncho—where, as director of operations, he had been forced to remain while his whole future was being decided somewhere out in the vast darkness.
He could now take action. He had already decided what to do. He feared neither the outlaw nor the would-be lynchers. The latter, especially, he held in contempt.