“Yeah, all right,” replied Hashknife, and Jimmy hurried up the street.
They listened to Wind River Jim’s opinion of the case, and then they moved over to the Black Horse. Lovely demurred about going in.
“I owe ’em forty dollars for busted glass,” he said. “If I go in there I might have to kill somebody. You boys go ahead and hear what’s bein’ said.”
Hashknife and Sleepy strolled in unnoticed. The Big 4 gang was at the bar with Roaring Rigby; Slim Regan seemed to have the floor.
“It jist means that there ain’t no law here,” decided Slim, “and when there ain’t no law, it’s up to the citizens to make a little.”
“When you jiggers git through runnin’ off at the neck, I’ll speak my piece,” said Roaring. “Through yet? Can’t think of another thing to say? Fine. You’ve talked a lot and ain’t said anything. In the first place, Old Man Conley owns that land. He’s got it fenced. You know he fenced that to keep the Big 4 off his land. There’s been bad blood between him and Frank Moran for twenty-five years. You and Moran both know that Conley said he’d shoot the first man to come on his place. And yet you went on, didn’t you? Trespassed, didn’t you?
“Started over there with the intention of givin’ him the devil over them steers. And all he done was to make good his promise. You got off easy. That old pelican can hit a gnat in the eye at fifty feet. All you lose is one horse. What you ought to do is to write him a letter tellin’ him you’re much obliged.”
It was a long speech for Roaring Rigby.
“If Conley didn’t have a pretty girl, you’d talk different,” said one of the men farther back in the room.
Roaring whirled quickly, but he did not know who had made the remark.