ight air their
opinions and hear some fresh bit of news, some conjecture that grew to
a rumor and was finally repeated broadcast as truth. Children cringed
and wept while necks were scrubbed relentlessly, for a fever of
"visiting" attacked the women of the range. Miles they would travel to
visit a neighbor. And there they talked and talked and talked, while
the guest in neighborly fashion dried the dinner dishes for the
hostess in hot, fly-infested kitchens.

Aleck Douglas, infuriated by the contemptuous attitude which Tom had
taken toward him and his spotty yearling, and by his failure to find
any incriminating evidence on the Devil's Tooth ranch, swore to a
good many suspicions which he called facts, and had Tom arrested. The
sheriff had taken two deputies along with him, because he fully
expected that the Lorrigans would "go on the warpath" as Belle had
done. He was vastly astonished and somewhat chagrined when Tom gave a
snort, handed over his gun, and turned to one of his boys.

"Al," said Tom, "you go ahead with the round-up while I go in and fix
this up. May take a few days--depends on the gait I can get 'em to
travel. I'll have to rustle me a lawyer, too. But you know what to do;
keep 'er moving till I get back."

Black Rim country talked and chortled and surmised, and wondered what
made Tom so darned meek about it. They did not accuse him of any lack
of nerve; being a Lorrigan, his nerve could scarcely be questioned.
Opinion was about evenly divided. A few declared that Tom had
something up his sleeve, and there would be a killing yet. Others
insisted that Tom knew when he was backed into a corner. Old Scotty
Douglas had him dead to rights, they said, and Tom knew better than to
run on the rope. Men and women assumed the gift of prophecy, and all
prophesied alike. Tom Lorrigan would go "over the road"; for how long
they could only guess according to their secret hopes. Some predicted
a fifteen-year term for Tom. Others thought that he might get off
lightly--say with five or six years. They based their opinion on the
fact that men have been sent to the penitentiary for fifteen years,
there to repent of stealing a calf not yet past the age of prime veal.
And it is not so long since men were hanged for stealing a horse;
witness Tom's brother, who would surely have been lynched had he not
been shot. Witness also divers other Lorrigans whose careers had been
shortened by their misdeeds.

Much of the talk was pe