"I don't know," answered Bradley. "It looks like a conspiracy."
The party filed out, and were confronted by some thirty or forty black-bearded, stern-faced men, who had tried and condemned them in advance of their appearance.
Richard Dewey glanced at the faces before him, and his spirit sank within him. He had been present at a similar scene before—a scene which had terminated in a tragedy—and he knew how swift and relentless those men could be. Who could have made such a charge he did not yet know, but, innocent as he and his companions were, he knew that their word would not be taken, and the mistake might lead to death. But he was not a man to quail or blanch.
"Hoss-thieves! string 'em up!" was shouted from more than one throat.
Richard Dewey calmly surveyed the angry throng. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am no more a horse-thief than any one of you."
There was a buzz of indignation, as if he had confessed his guilt and implicated them in it.
"I demand to see and face my accusers," he said boldly. "What man has dared to charge me and my friends with the mean and contemptible crime of stealing horses?"
Jake Bradley had been looking about him too. Over the heads of the men, who stood before them drawn up in a semicircle, he saw what had escaped the notice of Richard Dewey, the faces and figures of Bill Mosely and Tom Hadley.
"Dick," said he, suddenly, "I see it all. Look yonder! There are them two mean skunks, Bill Mosely and Tom Hadley. It's they who have been bringin' this false slander ag'in us."
Richard Dewey and Ben immediately looked in the direction indicated.