ifle regretful. But that was all. An invincible purpose
shone in his dark eyes.

"They'll be here in a minute, Peter," he said, with a shadowy smile.
"I've got a word to say before they get around. We've been good
friends, and now, at the last, I'd hate you to get a wrong notion of
things. I call God to witness that I did not kill Will Henderson. It's
because we're friends I tell you this, now. It's because these folk
are going to hang me. You can stake your last cent on that being the
truth, and if you don't get paid in this world, I sure guess you will
in the next. Well--here they are."

As he finished speaking the doors were pushed open and men began to
stream in. It was a curiously silent crowd. For these men a death,
even a murder, had little awe. They understood too well the forceful
methods of the back countries, where the laws of civilization had
difficulty in reaching. They had too long governed their own social
affairs without appeal to the parent government. What could Washington
know of their requirements? What could a judge of the circuit know of
the conditions in which they lived? They preferred their own methods,
drastic as they were and often wrong in their judgments. Yet, on the
whole, they were efficacious and salutary. Life and death were small
enough matters to them, but the career of a criminal, and its swift
termination, short, sharp and violent, was of paramount importance. It
was the thought that they believed there was justice, their own
justice, to be dealt out to a criminal that night, that now depressed
them to an awed silence.

Three or four men placed several of the small tables together, forming
them into a sort of bier. Then they stood by while others pushed their
way in through the swing doors. Finally, two men stood just inside,
holding the doors open, while two of the ranchmen carried in their
ominous, silent burden. Doc Crombie was the last but one to enter. The
man who came last was the evil-minded hardware dealer. His eyes were
sparkling, and his thin lips were tightly compressed. Now he had an
added score to pay off. Nor was he particular to whom he paid it.

The body of the murdered man was laid upon the tables, and Silas
Rocket provided a shroud.

Jim Thorpe watched these proceedings with the keenest interest. Never
for a moment did he remove his eyes from the dead man, until the dirty
white tablecloth had been carelessly thrown over him. He had in his
mind many things duri