“Yes, yes,” cried several voices, standing near their little leader.
Peter’s eyes lit.
“Don’t you dare to mention her name in here, Smallbones,” he cried, with a sudden fierceness, “or, small as you are, I’ll smash you to a pulp, and kick you from here to your store. In your wretched gossip, and in your scandal-loving hearts you must say and think what you please, but don’t do it here, for I won’t stand for it.”
A murmur applauded him from Doc Crombie’s direction, and even Smallbones was silenced for the moment. Peter went on.
“See here, I’m known to everybody. I’m known in most places where the grass of the prairie grows, and my name’s mostly good. Well, I want to say right here, on 349 my oath, Jim Thorpe’s no cattle-thief, and, as God is my judge, I know that to be true. Jim Thorpe hasn’t an evil thought in his–––”
“Hold on,” cried Doc Crombie, excitedly, as the swing doors were pushed suddenly open. “Here’s some one who’ll mebbe have a word to say fer himself. You’re jest in time to say a word or two, Jim Thorpe,” he smiled, as the man’s pale face appeared in their midst.
“Here he is,” cried Smallbones, his wicked eyes sparkling. “Here he is, fellers. Here is the man I accuse right here of bein’ a low-down cattle-thief. That’s your charge, Jim Thorpe. An’ don’t ferget we hang cattle–––”
“Shut your rotten face, you worm!” cried Jim, contemptuously. He was standing in the centre of the room. Everybody had made way for him, and now he confronted a circle of accusing faces. He glanced swiftly round till his dark eyes rested on the hawk-like visage of the doctor.
“Say, Will Henderson’s dead,” he said, in a quiet, solemn voice. “He’s been murdered. He’s lying up there on the south side of the eastern bluff. Guess you’d best send up and––see to him.”
His words produced a sudden and deathly silence. Every eye was upon his pale face in excited, incredulous wonderment. Will Henderson dead? Their questioning eyes asked plainly for more information, while their tongues were silent with something like awe. Smallbones reached his glass from the counter and drank its contents at a gulp, but his eyes never left Jim’s face. His astonishment didn’t interfere with the rapid working of his mean brain. To him Jim looked a sick man. There was something defiant in the dark eyes. The man, to his swift 350 imagination, was unduly perturbed. He glanced down at his clothes, and his eyes fixed themselves greedily upon the fingers of the hand nearest to him. A flash of triumph shot into his eyes as he heard Doc Crombie’s voice suddenly break the silence.