The other men arose and sauntered down. Bender saw trouble coming and his mood was truculent.
“Okey,” he said. “I'm here to take charge.”
The men exchanged glances, amused, and Peebles said sarcastically:
“Well, you're just outta luck. We've decided to handle this ourselves.”
“Let's talk about it,” Bender suggested but Peebles shook his head, pressed his thin lips together and said talk wouldn't do any good because everything was settled.
A few of the men chorused: “Yeah,” and a deep bass voice from behind said: “You're damned right.”
Tom Bender knew what his chances were without any long thinking. There was a great strength latent in the group but all of them were sensible and might yet be reasoned with. But if they got out carrying the torch there would be hundreds of irresponsible men to fall in and care not where the flame touched.
“Bender,” Peebles said; “my girl was killed. The men who killed her were arrested but it didn't take. Now we're gonna have justice.”
Tom Bender worked back against the door and said: “You can't get justice with a mob—that's no good. I'm down here to take charge and I will but I got to have a chance. Leave me be and I'll mop up this burg so clean you can eat your dinner off the sidewalks.”
Nobody paid much attention to what he said because they all felt like fighting. Old Jeff Peebles shook his head and looked at Bender through narrow-slitted eyes, the puzzled look of a man who faces a strange thing he knows he must deal with.