reckon we ain't any of us prize Sunday
school winners for that matter."

"Are we all friends of Soapy Stone and Bad Bill? Do we all rustle stock
and shoot up good citizens?" Dutch shrilled.

Maloney's blue Irish eyes rested on the little puncher for a moment, then
passed on as if he had been weighed and found wanting.

"I've noticed," he said to nobody in particular, "that them hollering
loudest for justice are most generally the ones that would hate to have it
done to them."

Dutch bristled like a turkey rooster. "What do you mean by that?"

The Irishman smiled derisively. "I reckon you can guess if you try real
hard."

Dutch fumed, but did no guessing out loud. His reputation was a
whitewashed one. Queer stories had been whispered about him. He had been a
nester, and it was claimed that calves certainly not his had been found
carrying his brand. The man had been full of explanations, but there came
a time when explanations no longer were accepted. He was invited to become
an absentee at his earliest convenience. This was when he had been living
across the mountains. Curly had been one of those who had given the
invitation. He had taken the hint and left without delay. Now he was
paying the debt he owed young Flandrau.

Though the role Curly had been given was that of the hardened desperado he
could not quite live up to the part. As Buck turned to leave the bunk
house the boy touched him on the arm.

"How about Cullison?" he asked, very low.

But Buck would not have it that way. "What about him?" he demanded out
load, his voice grating like steel when it grinds.

"Is he--how is he doing?"

"What's eatin' you? Ain't he dying fast enough to suit you?"

Flandrau shrank from the cruel words, as a schoolboy does from his teacher
when he jumps at him with a cane. He understood how the men were feeling,
but to have it put into words like this cut him deeply.

It was then that Maloney made a friend of the young man for life. He let a
hand drop carelessly on Curly's shoulder and looked at him with a friendly
smile in his eyes, just as if he knew that this was no wolf but a poor
lost dog up against it hard.

"Doc thinks he'll make it all right."

But there were times when Curly wondered whether it would make any
difference to him whether Cullison got well or not. Something immediate
was in the air. Public opinion was sifting down to a decision. There were
wise nods, and whisperings, and men riding up and going