"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."
Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.
A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had been running. It was Keller.
That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for him last night.
"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.
They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.
"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the mantel.
He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil were unusually tall men—as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.
"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.
"Made up your mind, have you?"