“No doctor could do me any good now,” said Bush. “I’ve got my death-wound.”
Indeed it seemed so. The knife had done its work so surely that not all the doctors in the world could have saved the miner from death. About four o’clock in the morning he died. Then Harry, exhausted with watching, fell asleep beside his dead comrade, and slept heavily till he was aroused by a rough shake.
He looked up, and recognized one of the three men who had come to their tent the night before.
“Are you coming to see Henderson swing?” he asked.
“What?”
“We’ve tried him, and he’s to be hung as soon as they can get a rope.”
Justice is swift in mining communities. It was not yet seven o’clock in the morning, but the guilty man had already been tried, and punishment was to be inflicted.
Harry shuddered.
“No,” he said; “I don’t want to see it.”