her Jones and
Brother Hill, you will kindly bring along the prisoner. The remaining
Friendly Aiders present will have the goodness, at the appropriate
moment, to render the assistance that they usually supply." And off
Charley went, right after Wood, with the rest of us following on: Hill
and Denver yanking along Shorty and flourishing their guns savage; the
girls in a pack around the Hen holding on to Kerosene; and Kerosene
doing her share of what was wanted by letting out yells.

The little man was left to himself a-purpose; and he was so shook up,
while he was coming along with the crowd over to the deepo, he
couldn't say a word. But he managed to get his stamps going, though
they didn't work well, when we was all on the platform--waiting while
Wood rigged up the rope on the telegraph-pole--and he asked Santa Fe,
speaking husky, what the boys meant to do.

"Justice!" says Charley, talking as dignified as a just-swore-in
sheriff. "As I explained to you this morning, sir, nobody in Palomitas
ever stands in the way of a fair fight--like the one you happened to
come in on at the finish a few hours ago--any more than good citizens,
elsewhere and under different conditions, interfere with the processes
of the courts. But when the fight is not fair, as in the present
instance--the gravamen of the charge against Brother Smith being that
he loosed off into Brother Hart's back when the latter did not know it
was coming and hadn't his gun out--then the moral sense of our
community crystallizes promptly into the punitive action that the case
demands: as you will see for yourself, inside of the next ten minutes,
when you see Brother Smith run up on that second telegraph-pole to the
left and kicking his legs in the air until he kicks himself into
Kingdom Come!"

"Good Heavens!" says the little man. "You're not going to--to hang
him?"

"We just rather are!" says Santa Fe. And then he says, talking kind of
cutting: "May I ask, sir, what you do in England with murderers? Do
you pay 'em salaries, and ask 'em out to tea-parties, and hire
somebody to see they have all the drinks they want?"

The little man begun telling how English folks manage such matters,
and was real excited. But nobody but the Hen paid no attention to him.
The Hen--she and Kerosene was standing close aside of him--turned
round to him and said pleasant she always enjoyed most the hangings
they had by moonlight (the moon was at the full, and shining
beautiful)