“No. Not yet. Doc says maybe he’ll die.”
“Jerry have a six-shooter out?”
“No.”
“He was gonna attack me. It was self-defence,” the grovelling man pleaded.
One of the crowd spoke: “This Dodson’s bad—bad clear to the bottom of his heart. He’s been talkin’ about his wife to make excuses for what he did.”
“Let’s wait, boys,” Scot said. “Maybe Jerry will pull through.”
“No, let’s finish the job, Scot. This fellow’s no good, anyhow. You know it. So do we.” Jean Poulette, the owner of a gambling house, pushed to the front.
“I’m not thinking about him, Jean. I’m thinking about that little mother in the prairie schooner. She’s got trouble enough already, hasn’t she? Do you want to pile on more—to send her through life marked as the wife of a man that was hanged? Ain’t that rather rough on her, boys?”
“She’ll be well rid of him,” a voice cried.
“Sure,” agreed McClintock. “But not that way. I don’t say this drunken loafer is worth saving. But we can’t hang him without striking a blow at her. She’s sensitive, boys. It would hurt her ’way down deep.”