“Which means they got him,” added Jake conclusively.
“We’ll have a drink first,” said Jim. Then he added whimsically, “Maybe we’ll need it.”
The silent acceptance of his invitation was due to the significance of their host’s position. And afterward the glasses were set down empty upon the counter, without a word. Then Jim turned to Peter, and his manner was a trifle regretful. But that was all. An invincible purpose shone in his dark eyes.
“They’ll be here in a minute, Peter,” he said, with a shadowy smile. “I’ve got a word to say before they get around. We’ve been good friends, and now, at the last, I’d hate you to get a wrong notion of things. I call God to witness that I did not kill Will Henderson. It’s because we’re friends I tell you this, now. It’s because these folk are going to hang me. You can stake your last cent on that being the truth, and if you don’t get paid in this world, I sure guess you will in the next. Well––here they are.”
As he finished speaking the doors were pushed open and men began to stream in. It was a curiously silent crowd. For these men a death, even a murder, had little awe. They understood too well the forceful methods of the back countries, where the laws of civilization had difficulty in reaching. They had too long governed their own social affairs without appeal to the parent government. What could Washington know of their requirements? What could a judge of the circuit know of the conditions in which they lived? They preferred their own methods, drastic as they were and often wrong in their judgments. Yet, on the whole, they were efficacious 357 and salutary. Life and death were small enough matters to them, but the career of a criminal, and its swift termination, short, sharp and violent, was of paramount importance. It was the thought that they believed there was justice, their own justice, to be dealt out to a criminal that night, that now depressed them to an awed silence.
Three or four men placed several of the small tables together, forming them into a sort of bier. Then they stood by while others pushed their way in through the swing doors. Finally, two men stood just inside, holding the doors open, while two of the ranchmen carried in their ominous, silent burden. Doc Crombie was the last but one to enter. The man who came last was the evil-minded hardware dealer. His eyes were sparkling, and his thin lips were tightly compressed. Now he had an added score to pay off. Nor was he particular to whom he paid it.
The body of the murdered man was laid upon the tables, and Silas Rocket provided a shroud.
Jim Thorpe watched these proceedings with the keenest interest. Never for a moment did he remove his eyes from the dead man, until the dirty white tablecloth had been carelessly thrown over him. He had in his mind many things during those moments. At first he had looked for his own telltale knife. But evidently it had been removed. There was no sign of its hideous projecting handle as he had last seen it. Neither had he noticed any one bearing his blood-stained handkerchiefs. He thought that Doc Crombie had possessed himself of these things, and expected he would produce them at the proper moment.