Rutherford paced up and down the room in a stress of sentiency. "No, Jess. I know just how you feel, but I'm going to give this kid his chance. We gunned Beaudry because he wouldn't let us alone. Either he or a lot of us had to go. But I'll say this. I never was satisfied with the way we did it. When Jack Beaudry shot you up, he was fighting for his life. We attacked him. You got no right to hold it against his son."
"I don't ask you to come in. I'll fix his clock all right."
"Nothing doing. I won't have it." Rutherford, by a stroke of strategy, carried the war into the country of the other. "I gave way to you about Dingwell, though I hated to try that Indian stuff on him. He's a white man. I've always liked him. It's a rotten business."
"What else can you do? We daren't turn him loose. You don't want to gun him. There is nothing left but to tighten the thumbscrews."
"It won't do any good," protested the big man with a frown. "He's game. He'll go through.… And if it comes to a showdown, I won't have him starved to death."
Tighe looked at him through half-hooded, cruel eyes. "He'll weaken. Another day or two will do it. Don't worry about Dingwell."
"There's not a yellow streak in him. You haven't a chance to make him quit." Rutherford took another turn up and down the room diagonally. "I don't like this way of fighting. It's—damnable, man! I won't have any harm come to Dave or to the kid either. I stand pat on that, Jess."
The man with the crutches swallowed hard. His Adam's apple moved up and down like an agitated thermometer. When he spoke it was in a smooth, oily voice of submission, but Rutherford noticed that the rapacious eyes were hooded.
"What you say goes, Hal. You're boss of this round-up. I was jest telling you how it looked to me."
"Sure. That's all right, Jess. But you want to remember that public sentiment is against us. We've pretty near gone our limit up here. If there was no other reason but that, it would be enough to make us let this young fellow alone. We can't afford a killing in the park now."