“Hang him! Hang him!” howled the mob, the guns click-clicking through the little stillnesses. If there’s a worse sound than a mob’s howl, Hell’s kept it for a surprise. I don’t wonder the hobo turned into a bag of skin, even at the imitation.
“You can’t have him!” Burt’s voice sounded dead earnest. He was a good actor. He handed the prisoner a gun. “Here—defend yourself. Get out of the way, you bums, or take what’s coming!”
That was our cue. A fusillade of blank cartridges covered our rush. The officers made a game fight.
Curses and screams showed where their unerring aim mowed down the Romans, but they were outnumbered. One by one they bit the dust. Mossman, the last one down, gallantly raised himself on elbow, fired a last defiant shot, groaned and died. Then all was still; a ghastly silence which Boucher broke. “This is bad business—but they would have it. Is the killer hurt?”
He had miraculously escaped. So we took him to a telegraph pole and put a rope around his neck.
“Let me say a word,” he gasped.
I like to remember that even a tramp can stand up and look at the Big Dark. He didn’t cry now; he’d lost sight of himself.
“Boys,” he said, quiet, “I ain’t begging. If I’d ’a’ done what they said it would put you straight. I’m only sorry so many better men was killed over me. You are doin’ what you think is right. But that man yonder—that Brown—killed Mr. Tinnin. Him and them three men lied. Tinnin’s blood and my blood and all the other boys’ blood is on their souls. I wouldn’t swap with them. I wouldn’t want to live and be them. But you’ll find out some day I told the truth. That’s about all.”
“Any word to your folks?” asked Boucher. “Want to pray?”
“I ain’t got no folks—and no notion how to pray,” he answered, catching at the nearest man to keep from falling. Then he steadied himself and looked up and around as if searching among the reeling stars for the Heavenly Help of whom he’d heard so much.