A voice, deep and ringing, sounded close at hand, almost within the room, and from a direction which Bard could not locate.
"Don't harm him if you can help it. But keep him in that room!"
Bard stepped back a pace till his shoulders touched the wall.
"Sirs," he said, "if you keep me here you will most certainly have to harm me."
A figure ran around the edge of the crowd and stood beside him.
"Stand clear of me, Sally," he muttered, much moved. "Stand away. This is a man's work."
"The work of a pack of coyotes!" she cried shrilly. "What d'ye mean?"
She turned on them fiercely.
"Are you goin' to murder a tenderfoot among you? One that ain't done no real harm? I don't believe my eyes. You, there, Shorty Kilrain, I've waited on you with my own hands. You've played the man with me. Are you goin' to play the dog now? Jansen, you was tellin' me about a blue-eyed girl in Sweden; have you forgot about her now? And Calamity Ben! My God, ain't there a man among you to step over here and join the two of us?"
They were shaken, but the memory of Drew quelled them.