"Go along with the crowd, Carnes, and stand in with Briggs."
Carnes winked and nodded, and I went on toward the hotel.
On reaching my room, I took from their case a brace of five-shooters, and put the weapons in my pockets. Then I went below and seated myself on the hotel piazza.
In order to reach Dr. Bethel's house, the crowd must pass the hotel; so I had only to wait.
I did not wait long, however. Soon they came down the street, quieter than they had been at Porter's, but resolute to defy law and order, and take justice into their own hands. As they hurried past the hotel in groups of twos, threes, and sometimes half a dozen, I noted them man by man. Jim Long was loping silently on by the side of an honest-faced farmer; Carnes and Briggs were in the midst of a swaggering, loud talking knot of loafers; the Harrises, father and son, followed in the rear of the crowd and on the opposite side of the street.
As the last group passed, I went across the road and joined the younger Harris, who was some paces in advance of his father, looking, as I did so, up and down the street. Arch Brookhouse came cantering up on a fine bay; he held in his hand the yellow envelope, which, doubtless, he had just received from Harris.
"Charlie," he called, reining in his horse. "Stop a moment; you must send a message for me."
We halted, Harris looking somewhat annoyed.
Brookhouse tore off half of the yellow envelope, and sitting on his horse, wrote a few words, resting his scrap of paper on the horn of his saddle.