"Who done it?" A dozen voices asked the question.

"Corrigan!" The Judge screamed this, hysterically. "He is a thief and a
scoundrel, men! He has plundered this county! He has prostituted your
court. Your judge, too! I admit it. But I ask your mercy, men! I was
forced into it! He threatened me! He falsified the land records! He wanted
me to destroy the original record, but I didn't--I told Trevison where it
was--I hid it! And because I wouldn't help Corrigan to rob you, he tried
to kill me!"

A murmur, low, guttural, vindictive, rippled over the crowd, which had now
swelled to such proportions that the street could not hold it. It fringed
the railroad track; men were packed against the buildings surrounding the
shed; they shoved, jostled and squirmed in an effort to get closer to the
Judge. The windows of the _Castle_ hotel were filled with faces, among
which Rosalind saw Hester Harvey's, ashen, her eyes aglow.

The Judge's words had stabbed Rosalind--each like a separate knife-thrust;
they had plunged her into a mental vacuum in which her brain, atrophied,
reeled, paralyzed. She staggered--a man caught her, muttered something
about there being too much excitement for a lady, and gruffly ordered
others to clear the way that he might lead her out of the jam. She
resisted, for she was determined to stay to hear the Judge to the end, and
the man grinned hugely at her; and to escape the glances that she could
feel were directed at her she slipped through the crowd and sought the
front of the shed, leaning against it, weakly.

A silence had followed the murmur that had run over the crowd. There was a
breathless period, during which every man seemed to be waiting for his
neighbor to take the initiative. They wanted a leader. And he appeared,
presently--a big, broad-shouldered man forced his way through the crowd
and halted in front of the Judge.

"I reckon we'll protect you, Judge. Just spit out what you got to say.
We'll stand by you. Where's Trevison?"

"He came to the courthouse last night to get the record. I told him where
it was. He forced me to go with him to an Indian pueblo, and he kept me
there yesterday. He left me there last night with Clay Levins, while he
came here to get the record."

"Do you reckon he got it?"

"I don't know. But from the way Corrigan acted last night--"

"Yes, yes; he got it!"

The words shifted the crowd's gaze to Rosalind, swiftly. The girl had
hardly realized that she had spo