“There is no possibility of a mistake.”
“What will you do with me?”
“Your sentence is death,” I told him.
For a single instant his dark face lit up.
“You think so?” he flashed.
“Hurry!” urged one of my companions.
With one man on either side and another behind, revolvers drawn, we marched our prisoner in double-quick time past the rear of the stores and saloons to the agreed rendezvous. There we found Danny Randall and his committee with Morton. Within the next few moments, in rapid succession, appeared the others with Scar-face Charley, Crawford, and Jules.
The camp was already buzzing with excitement. Men poured out from the buildings into the streets like disturbed ants. Danny thrust his prisoners into the interior of the cabin, and drew us up in two lines outside. He impressed on us that we must keep the military formation, and that 361 we were to allow no one to approach. Across the road about twenty yards away he himself laid a rope.
“That’s the dead-line,” he announced. “Now you keep the other side!”
In no time a mob of five hundred men had gathered. They surged restlessly to and fro. The flash of weapons was everywhere to be seen. Cries rent the air–demands, threats, oaths, and insults so numerous and so virulent that I must confess my heart failed me. At any instant I expected the mob to open fire; they could have swept us away with a single volley. To my excited imagination every man of that multitude looked a ruffian. We seemed alone against the community. I could not understand why they did not rush us and have it over with. Yet they hesitated. The fact of the matter is that the desperadoes had no cohesion, no leaders; and they knew what none of us knew–namely, that a good many of that crowd must be on our side. The roar and turmoil and heat of discussion, argument, and threat rose and fell. In one of the lulls an Irish voice yelled: