ey laughed loudly at the blackguard picture which he drew; and the
laugh stopped short, for the Virginian stood over Trampas.

"You can rise up now, and tell them you lie," he said.

The man was still for a moment in the dead silence. "I thought you
claimed you and her wasn't acquainted," said he then.

"Stand on your laigs, you polecat, and say you're a liar!"

Trampas's hand moved behind him.

"Quit that," said the Southerner, "or I'll break your neck!"

The eye of a man is the prince of deadly weapons. Trampas looked in the
Virginian's, and slowly rose. "I didn't mean--" he began, and paused,
his face poisonously bloated.

"Well, I'll call that sufficient. Keep a-standin' still. I ain' going
to trouble yu' long. In admittin' yourself to be a liar you have spoke
God's truth for onced. Honey Wiggin, you and me and the boys have hit
town too frequent for any of us to play Sunday on the balance of
the gang." He stopped and surveyed Public Opinion, seated around in
carefully inexpressive attention. "We ain't a Christian outfit a little
bit, and maybe we have most forgotten what decency feels like. But I
reckon we haven't forgot what it means. You can sit down now, if you
want."

The liar stood and sneered experimentally, looking at Public Opinion.
But this changeful deity was no longer with him, and he heard it
variously assenting, "That's so," and "She's a lady," and otherwise
excellently moralizing. So he held his peace. When, however, the
Virginian had departed to the roasting steer, and Public Opinion relaxed
into that comfort which we all experience when the sermon ends, Trampas
sat down amid the reviving cheerfulness, and ventured again to be
facetious.

"Shut your rank mouth," said Wiggin to him, amiably. "I don't care
whether he knows her or if he done it on principle. I'll accept the
roundin' up he gave us--and say! You'll swallo' your dose, too! Us
boys'll stand in with him in this."

So Trampas swallowed. And what of the Virginian?

He had championed the feeble, and spoken honorably in meeting, and
according to all the constitutions and by-laws of morality, he should
have been walking in virtue's especial calm. But there it was! he had
spoken; he had given them a peep through the key-hole at his inner
man; and as he prowled away from the assemblage before whom he stood
convicted of decency, it was vicious rather than virtuous that he felt.
Other matters also disquieted him--so Lin McLean was hangin