“Now you're shouting, lieutenant. That's all we ask.”
“It depends on what you mean by fair and square,” another one spoke up.
The ranger nodded amiably at him. “That you, Harris? Well, let's look at the facts right. Here's Lost Valley, that's had a bad name ever since it was inhabited. Far as I can make out its settlers are honest men, regarded outside as miscreants. Just as folks were beginning to forget it, comes the Squaw Creek raid. Now, I'm not going into that, and I'm not going to say a word against the man that lies dead up in the hills. But I'll say this: His death solves a problem for a good many of the boys up there. I'm going to make it my business to see that the facts are known right down in Gimlet Butte. I'm going to lift the blame from the boys that were present, and couldn't help what happened.”
Yorky was impressed, but suspicion was not yet banished from his mind. “You seem to know a lot about it, lieutenant.”
“No use discussing that, Yorky. I know what I know. Here's the great big point: If you lynch the man that shot Jed, the word will go out that the valley is still a nest of lawless outlaws. The story will be that the Squaw Creek raiders and their friends did it. Just as the situation is clearing up nicely, you'll make it a hundred times worse by seeming to indorse what Jed did on Squaw Creek.”
“By thunder, that's right,” Harris blurted.
Fraser spoke again. “Listen, boys. Do you hear horses galloping? That is Sheriff Brandt's deputies, coming to our assistance. You've lost the game, but you can save your faces yet. Join us, and kelp escort the prisoner to town. Nobody need know why you came out. We'll put it that it was to guard against a lynching.”
The men looked at each other sheepishly. They had been outwitted, and in their hearts were glad of it. Harris turned to the ranger with a laugh. “You're a good one, Fraser. Kept us here talking, while your reënforcements came up. Well, boys, I reckon we better join the Sunday-school class.”
So it happened that when Sheriff Brandt and his men came up they found the mountain folk united. He was surprised at the size of the force with the Texan.
“You're certainly of a cautious disposition, lieutenant. With eight men to help you, I shouldn't have figured you needed my posse,” he remarked.