"Twelve, besides myself."
"Thirteen is an unlucky number," commented Javert, who had all a gambler's superstition.
"It will be--for the marshal," was the sinister answer. "Let's move." Dirty Dick's was a human beehive, and the motley crowd, reinforced by the Dumb-bell riders, fed Sark's vanity with a cheer. From his saddle, the rancher addressed them :
"Well, friends, I'm told you want me to argue with Nippert."
"Argue nawthin'," came a harsh voice. "We aim to take an' string that gunman. Ain't that so, fellas?" Affirmative yells answered the question, and S ark, with a lift of his shoulders as one giving in to the popular desire, led the way down the street. His cowboys closed in behind him, and the mob followed.
Outside the calaboose, the saloon-keeper, with less than a dozen men, stood on guard. He had witnessed the arrival of the Dumb-bell party, heard the riotous clamour at Dirty Dick's, and knew that an attempt would be made to deprive him of the prisoner.
"Pity you took away Jim's guns," Gowdy said. "If it comes to a battle, he'd be useful."
"I've got his belt on under my coat," Nippert replied. "If things git that far, I'll agree to fetch Jim out an' slip it to him. Here they come." Sark and his outfit, rifles across their knees, had pulled up about ten paces away, and the others spread out in a half-circle behind them, glaring with avid eyes at the prison which held their prey. A menacing silence prevailed until Nippert spoke:
"Well, S ark, what's yore errand?"
"We want the criminal yo're plannin' to set free."
"That's not true. I'm handin' the marshal over to Pine-town; it's their job to deal with him."
"We ain't trustin' you. Fetch him out, or take the consequences." The saloon-keeper looked at the row of threatening rifles, one volley from which might well wipe out himself and his friends. It would be hopeless. He glanced up the street, but there was no sign of the Bar O. He must make a last desperate bid for time.
"You win, Sark," he said. "I'll git him."
"No," Jake snapped. "Throw me the key."
"I'll see you in hell first."
"Then you'll be waitin' for me," the other jeered, and drew his gun. "Out with it, or . .." The big man was still hesitating when a voice from inside the calaboose said calmly, "Better let him have it, or-timer; no sense in a ruckus which can on'y end one way." With a curse of disgust, Nippert flung the key on the ground. "An' that's the man you claim is a bloodthirsty murderer," he cried passionately.
"That kind o' talk won't buy you anythin'," Jake retorted.
He unlocked the door and stood back, revolver in hand. A moment of silence and the prisoner stepped out into the sunlight to be welcomed by a storm of execration. He heard it with contemptuous indifference; if he had his guns . . .
"Git agoin'," Jake ordered.
The marshal looked at the men who had tried to save him. "I'm thankin' yu," he said, and head up, staring stolidly before him, moved forward.
Some of these men had praised him when he thrashed Mullins; they would condemn him with the same enthusiasm when he dangled lifeless from a tree. Once he turned his head and saw that his few friends were tramping along with the others. He spoke his thought:
"They can't do a thing."
"you bet they can't, 'cept go with you for comp'ny," a cowboy beside him agreed. "We got ropes to spare." Sudden did not reply. The top of a tall cottonwood was now in sight, and the imminence of death was upon him. He knew that to be hauled off the ground and left hanging until the tightening noose checked the breath, must, to a healthy man, mean many minutes of agony. He dismissed the thought with a shrug.
The tree was reached, and the victim thrust under a stout outflung branch over which the man who had jeered at him on the journey proceeded to throw one end of his lariat. He then adjusted the loop and stood back, surveying his work. "All set," he announced.
At these words the spectators closed in, eager to feed their animal appetite with every detail of the drama.
To the condemned man it all seemed unreal. Above his head, birds were chirping, and the sunlight, filtering through the foliage, threw dancing shadows on the ground. The world appeared, in truth, a fair place, and he was about to leave it--shamefully. Then into his consciousness came something very real indeed--Javert's poisonous features, alight with triumph, within a foot of his own.
"So, Mister Sudden, our game is finished, an' I take the pot," he hissed. "I promised myself to get you an' that coyote cub, Masters " He got no further, having--in his eagerness to vent his spleen--overlooked the fact that the man he taunted was unbound. With all the fury of one who has nothing to lose, Sudden's right fist came up and smashed into the leering face like a battering-ram, and Javert went down as though he had encountered a cyclone. Mouthing mad blasphemies, he scrambled to his feet and clawed at his gun, but Jake clutched his wrist.
"Don't be a fool ! " he cried. "Can't you wait a few minutes? That's what he was playin' for--an easy death." The stricken man spat out a tooth and wiped the blood from his gashed lips. "I'll make it easy for him," he snarled. "Listen, you with the rope : when he's half-choked, lower him to the ground again so's he can fill his lungs, an' keep on doin' it; he shall die ten times for that blow." This diabolical suggestion brought an angry protest from the saloon-keeper, and some of the more sober in the crowd supported him.
"We're here to see justice done, Sark," one of them said. "But we ain't Injuns, an' won't stand for torture."
"An' I don't reckon that Pinetown has the say-so in these proceedin's neither," another added, a sentiment whichbrought a still blacker look to Javert's damaged countenance, but was promptly taken up and repeated.
More joined in, and the argument as to whether a man should die slowly or quickly became general.
Chapter VII
SHORTLY after the band of self-appointed executioners had departed on its grisly errand, a solitary horseman loped into Welcome. Young, attired in range-rig, with a good-humoured, not unpleasing face, there was nothing remarkable about him save his pallor, unusual in a land of sunburnt skins. At Gowdy's store he dismounted, entered, and asked for "smokin'."
"This is the most lonesome place I've struck," he remarked. "Yu ain't the on'y inhabitant, are yu?"
"All the men are gone to the lynchin', I s'pose," Lucy told him, with a feminine shudder. "Beasts, I call them." The visitor stared at her. "Yu don't say. Who they string-in' up, an' whyfor?"
"Our new marshal," she said. "They say he shot a man."
"Well, a marshal has to do that--times. I ain't never seen a hangin'. Where's it takin' place?"
"On the road to the west--there's no trees here."
"What had the dead man done?"
"I don't know--it happened a long ways off, before the marshal came here." Her eyes filled. "You see, it was owin' to me he got the job. If I hadn't told him of the vacancy maybe ... Oh, it's too bad. I can see him now, ridin' up to the Red Light on that great black horse."
"A black hoss?" the cowboy cried. "With a white face?"
"Why, yes, do you ?"
"Hell's flames ! " he swore, and darted for the street.
leaving his purchase and the dollar he had put down in payment lying on the counter.
Amazement held her for a moment, then she ran to the door, only to see a diminishing cloud of dust travelling west.
"He must be awful anxious to see a hangin'," she decided.
In this she did the young man an injustice, for that was precisely what he fervently desired not to see. Therefore he plied spurs and quirt--though not cruelly--in the effort to drag a little more speed from his tired mount.
"Which I'm shorely sorry, Splinter, but we just gotta make it," he panted. "O' course, he may've sold his hoss, but no, he'd never part with Nigger." Soon they sighted the tree, and the black knot of people. A decision had been arrived at--Javert's inhuman proposal had found few supporters, and Sudden was to die only once.