"Now you've said something!" cried Mizzoo. "Boys, don't you think it's a reasonable explanation?"
Some of them did, evidently, for the grim resolution on their faces softened; others, however, were unconvinced.
A stern voice was raised: "Let Brick Willock come do his own explaining. Bill Atkins knows where he's hiding out—and we got to know. We've started in to be a law-abiding county, and that there warrant against Willock has got the right of way."
"You've no warrant against Bill," cried Wilfred, stepping to the edge of the platform, "therefore you've violated the law in locking him up."
"That's so," exclaimed Red Kimball's former comrade. "Well, turn 'im loose, that's what we ask—LET him go—open the jail door!"
"He's locked up for his own safety," shouted Mizzoo. "You fellows agree to leave him alone, and I'll turn him out quick enough. You talk about the law—what you want to do to Bill ain't overly lawful, I take it."
"If he gives up his secret we ain't going to handle him rough," was the quick retort.
Lahoma found that the softening influence she had exerted was already fast dissipating. They bore with her merely because of her youth and sex. She cried out desperately.
"Is there nothing I can say to move your hearts? Has my story of that pearl and onyx pin been lost on you? Couldn't you understand, after all? Are you western men, and yet unable to feel the worth of a western man like Brick?... How he clothed me and sheltered me when the man who should have supported the child left in his care neglected her.... How he taught me and was always tender and gentle—never a cross word—a man like THAT.... And you think he could kill! I don't know whether Bill was told his hiding-place or not. But if I knew it, do you think I'd tell? And if Bill betrayed him,—but Bill wouldn't do it. Thank God, I've been raised with real MEN, men that know how to stand by each other and be true to the death. You want Bill to turn traitor. I say, what kind of men are YOU?"
She turned to Wilfred, blinded by hot tears. "Oh, say something to them!" she gasped, clinging to his arm.