The visitors glanced at each other, slightly nonplussed. The big 'Piker' swore in his beard. "We'll arrest the hull outfit," he said decidedly, "and carry 'em in to San Lorenzy."

"You ain't, the sheriff nor his deputy," said Ransom. "What d'ye mean," he continued savagely, "by coming here with this ridic'lous song and dance? There's the door. Git!"

"You threatened to shoot Farge," said the 'Piker.' "An' it's my solid belief you done it in cold blood, too. We're five here, all heeled, and there's more outside. If you're innocent the sheriff'll let you off to-morrer; but, innocent or guilty, by Gosh, you're comin' with us to-night. Hold up yer hands! Quick!"

Ransom and Smoky held up their hands.

"Search 'em," commanded the 'Piker.'

This was done effectively. A Derringer doesn't take up much room in a man's pocket, but it has been known to turn the tables upon larger weapons. Ransom and Smoky, however, were unarmed; but the squatter who ran his hand over Smoky's pockets encountered a small cylinder, which he held up to the public gaze.

It was an empty cartridge.

To understand fully what this meant one must possess a certain knowledge of Western ways and sentiment. Pistols and rifles belonging to the pioneers, for example, often exhibit notches, each of which bears silent witness to the shedding of blood. The writer knew intimately a very mild, kindly old man who had a strop fashioned out of several thicknesses of Apache skins. The Apaches had inflicted unmentionable torments upon him and his, and the strop was his dearest possession. The men and women of the wilderness are primal in their loves and hates.

The big 'Piker' examined the long bra.s.s cylinder, small of bore and old-fashioned in shape. He slipped it into the Sharp rifle, and laughed grimly as he said--

"A relic!"

Ransom's face was impa.s.sive; Smoky Jack exhibited a derisive defiance.

Inwardly he was cursing himself for a fool in having kept the cartridge. He had intended to throw it away as soon as he found himself outside. But from the first he had wanted Mintie's father to know _that he knew!_ Primal again. Pap would not forget to clean his rifle at the first opportunity; and then, without a word on either side, he would realise that the man who wanted his daughter was a true friend.

We may add that the breaking of the sixth commandment in no wise affected Smoky. Jake Farge had been warned that he would be shot on sight if he made "trouble." Everybody in San Lorenzo County was well aware that it was no kind of use "foolin'" with Pap Ransom. Jake--in a word--deserved what he had got. Smoky would have drawn as true a bead upon a squatter disputing t.i.tle to his land. We don't defend Mr.

Short's ethics, we simply state them.

The 'Piker' said quietly--

"Anything to say, young feller?"

Smoky Jack made a gallant attempt to bluff a man who had played his first game of poker before Smoky was born.

"Yer dead right. It _is_ a relic of a big buck I killed with that ther gun las' week. Flopped into a mare's nest, you hev!"

"That sh.e.l.l was fired to-day," said the 'Piker,' authoritatively. "The powder ain't dry in it. Boys,"--he glanced round at the circle of grim faces--"let's take the San Lorenzy road."

The squatters, reinforced by half a dozen men who had not entered the adobe, escorted their prisoners down the hill till they came to a large live oak, a conspicuous feature of the meadow beyond the creek.

The moon shone at the full as she rose majestically above the pines which fringed the eastern horizon. In the air was a smell of tar-weed, deliciously aromatic; and the only sounds audible were the whispering of the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods and the tinkle of the creek on its way to the Pacific.

Smoky inhaled the fragrance of the tar-weed, and turned his blue eyes to the left, where, in the far distance, a tall pine indicated the north-west corner of his ranch. Neither he nor Ransom expected to reach San Lorenzo that night. They were setting out on a much longer journey.

Under the live oak Judge Lynch opened his court. No time was wasted.

The squatters were impressed with the necessity of doing what had to be done quickly. The big 'Piker' spoke first.

"Boys, ain't it true that in this yere county there ain't bin a single man executed by the law fer murder in the first degree?"

"That's right. Not a one!"

"And if a man has a bit o' dough behind him, isn't it a fact that he don't linger overly long in San Quentin?"

"Dead sure snap."

"Boys, this is our affair. We're pore; we've neither money nor time to waste in law courts, but we've got to show some o' these fellers as is holding land as don't belong to 'em that we mean business first, last, and all the time."

There was a hoa.r.s.e murmur of a.s.sent.

"The cold facts are these," continued the speaker. "We all know that Ransom and Jake Farge hev had trouble over the claim that Farge staked out inside o' Ransom's fence; an' we know that Ransom has no more right to the land he fenced than the coyotes that run on it. For twenty years he's enjoyed the use of what isn't his'n, an' I say he'd oughter be thankful. Anyways, we come down to the events of yesterday and to-day. Yesterday he tole Jake that he'd shoot him on sight if he, Jake, come on to the land which Uncle Sam says is his. Do you deny that?"

"That's 'bout what I tole him," drawled Ransom.

"To-day Jake was shot dead like a dog by somebody who was a-waitin'

for him, hidden in the brush. The widder, pore soul, suspicioning trouble, follered Jake, and found him with a bullet plumb through his heart. She heard the shot, and she swore that it come from Ransom's side o' the fence. And she knows and we know that there isn't a man 'twixt Maine and Californy with a grudge agen Jake, always exceptin'

this yere Ransom."

"That's so," growled the Court.

"Boys, Jake was murdered with a bullet of small bore--not with a bullet outer a Winchester, sech as most of us carry. Whar did that ther bullet come from, boys?"

"Outer a Sharp rifle."

"Jest so. Who fired it? Mebbe we'll never know that. But we know this.

'Twas fired by one o' these yere men. One was and is accessory to t'other. The boy admits he's sweet on Ransom's gal; an' mebbe he did this dirt to win her. And he swears that Pap was in his corral at six.

That's a lie or it ain't, as may be. If he was in the corral, t'other wasn't. Boys--I won't detain ye any longer. Those in favour of hangin'

Thomas Ransom an' John Short here and now hold up their hands!"

The men present held up their hands. One or two of the more bloodthirsty held up both hands.

"That'll do. Those in favour of takin' the prisoners to San Lorenzy hold up their hands. Nary a hand! Prisoners ye've bin tried by yer feller-men, and found guilty o' murder in the first degree. Have ye anything to say?"

Smoky answered huskily: "Nothin', 'cept that I'm not guilty."

"An' you, Mr. Ransom?" said the 'Piker,' with odd politeness.

"I've a lot ter say," drawled the old man. "Seemingly murder has been done, but Smoky here never done it; nor did I. I fired at a buck an'

missed it. There ain't overly much o' the fool in me, but there's enough to make me hate ownin' up to a clean miss. When I got to the corral this evening, Smoky had bin there an hour or so at least. He arst me if I'd killed a buck and said he'd heard a shot. Wal, I lied, but I saw that he suspicioned me. Afterwards, I reckon he'd a look at the old gun, and found the sh.e.l.l in it. He must ha' got it into his fool head that he was G.o.d's appointed instrument to save _me_.

He's as innercent as Mary's little lamb, and so am I."

The squatters gazed at each other in stupefaction. Not a man present but could lie fearlessly on occasion, but not with such consummate art as this.

"Anything more ter say?" inquired the 'Piker.'

"Wal, there's this: I tole Jake Farge that I'd shoot him on sight, and I'm mighty glad that someone else has saved me the trouble. You mean to do me up; I see that plain. I hated yer comin' into a country that won't support a crowd, and I've made things hot for more'n one of ye.

But I wasn't thinkin' o' land when I warned Jake Farge not to set foot on my ranch."

"What was you thinkin' of?"

"Of my Mintie. That feller--a married man--has bin after her--and some of you know it. She kin take keer of herself can my Mints, but some things is a man's business. I meant to shoot him, but I didn't. I'm glad the low-down cuss is dead, but the bullet that stopped his crawlin' to my gal never come outer my rifle. Now string me up, and be derned to ye, but let this young feller go back to look after my daughter. That's all."