BLANCO [indignantly bringing down his fist on the bar] Swear the jury. A rotten Sheriff you are not to know that the jury's got to be sworn.

THE FOREMAN [galled] Be swore for you! Not likely. What do you say, old son?

NESTOR [deliberately and solemnly] I say: GUILTY!!!

THE BOYS [tumultuously rushing at Blanco] Thats it. Guilty, guilty.

Take him out and hang him. He's found guilty. Fetch a rope. Up with him.

[They are about to drag him from the bar].

THE SHERIFF [rising, pistol in hand] Hands off that man. Hands off him, I say, Squinty, or I drop you, and would if you were my own son. [Dead silence], I'm Sheriff here; and it's for me to say when he may lawfully be hanged. [They release him].

BLANCO. As the actor says in the play, "a Daniel come to judgment."

Rotten actor he was, too.

THE SHERIFF. Elder Daniel is come to judgment all right, my lad. Elder: the floor is yours. [The Elder rises]. Give your evidence. The truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you G.o.d.

ELDER DANIELS. Sheriff: let me off this. I didn't ought to swear away this man's life. He and I are, in a manner of speaking, brothers.

THE SHERIFF. It does you credit, Elder: every man here will acknowledge it. But religion is one thing: law is another. In religion we're all brothers. In law we cut our brother off when he steals horses.

THE FOREMAN. Besides, you neednt hang him, you know. Theres plenty of willing hands to take that job off your conscience. So rip ahead, old son.

STRAPPER. Youre accountable to me for the horse until you clear yourself, Elder: remember that.

BLANCO. Out with it, you fool.

ELDER DANIELS. You might own up, Blanco, as far as my evidence goes.

Everybody knows I borrowed one of the Sheriff's horses from Strapper because my own's gone lame. Everybody knows you arrived in the town yesterday and put up in my house. Everybody knows that in the morning the horse was gone and you were gone.

BLANCO [in a forensic manner] Sheriff: the Elder, though known to you and to all here as no brother of mine and the rottenest liar in this town, is speaking the truth for the first time in his life as far as what he says about me is concerned. As to the horse, I say nothing; except that it was the rottenest horse you ever tried to sell.

THE SHERIFF. How do you know it was a rotten horse if you didn't steal it?

BLANCO. I don't know of my own knowledge. I only argue that if the horse had been worth its keep, you wouldn't have lent it to Strapper, and Strapper wouldn't have lent it to this eloquent and venerable ram.

[Suppressed laughter]. And now I ask him this. [To the Elder] Did we or did we not have a quarrel last evening about a certain article that was left by my mother, and that I considered I had a right to more than you?

And did you say one word to me about the horse not belonging to you?

ELDER DANIELS. Why should I? We never said a word about the horse at all. How was I to know what it was in your mind to do?

BLANCO. Bear witness all that I had a right to take a horse from him without stealing to make up for what he denied me. I am no thief. But you havnt proved yet that I took the horse. Strapper Kemp: had I the horse when you took me, or had I not?

STRAPPER. No, nor you hadnt a railway train neither. But Feemy Evans saw you pa.s.s on the horse at four o'clock twenty-five miles from the spot where I took you at seven on the road to Pony Harbor. Did you walk twenty-five miles in three hours? That so, Feemy, eh?

FEEMY. Thats so. At four I saw him. [To Blanco] Thats done for you.

THE SHERIFF. You say you saw him on my horse?

FEEMY. I did.

BLANCO. And I ate it, I suppose, before Strapper fetched up with me.

[Suddenly and dramatically] Sheriff: I accuse Feemy of immoral relations with Strapper.

FEEMY. Oh you liar!

BLANCO. I accuse the fair Euphemia of immoral relations with every man in this town, including yourself, Sheriff. I say this is a conspiracy to kill me between Feemy and Strapper because I wouldn't touch Feemy with a pair of tongs. I say you darent hang any white man on the word of a woman of bad character. I stand on the honor and virtue of my American manhood. I say that she's not had the oath, and that you darent for the honor of the town give her the oath because her lips would blaspheme the holy Bible if they touched it. I say thats the law; and if you are a proper United States Sheriff and not a low-down lyncher, youll hold up the law and not let it be dragged in the mud by your brother's kept woman.

[Great excitement among the women. The men much puzzled.]

JESSIE. Thats right. She didn't ought to be let kiss the Book.

EMMA. How could the like of her tell the truth?

BABSY. It would be an insult to every respectable woman here to believe her.

FEEMY. It's easy to be respectable with n.o.body ever offering you a chance to be anything else.

THE WOMEN [clamoring all together] Shut up, you hussy. Youre a disgrace.

How dare you open your lips to answer your betters? Hold your tongue and learn your place, miss. You painted s.l.u.t! Whip her out of the town!

THE SHERIFF. Silence. Do you hear? Silence. [The clamor ceases]. Did anyone else see the prisoner with the horse?

FEEMY [pa.s.sionately] Aint I good enough?

BABSY. No. Youre dirt: thats what you are.

FEEMY. And you--

THE SHERIFF. Silence. This trial is a man's job; and if the women forget their s.e.x they can go out or be put out. Strapper and Miss Evans: you cant have it two ways. You can run straight, or you can run gay, so to speak; but you cant run both ways together. There is also a strong feeling among the men of this town that a line should be drawn between those that are straight wives and mothers and those that are, in the words of the Book of Books, taking the primrose path. We don't wish to be hard on any woman; and most of us have a personal regard for Miss Evans for the sake of old times; but theres no getting out of the fact that she has private reasons for wishing to oblige Strapper, and that--if she will excuse my saying so--she is not what I might call morally particular as to what she does to oblige him. Therefore I ask the prisoner not to drive us to give Miss Evans the oath. I ask him to tell us fair and square, as a man who has but a few minutes between him and eternity, what he done with my horse.

THE BOYS. Hear, hear! Thats right. Thats fair. That does it. Now Blanco.

Own up.

BLANCO. Sheriff: you touch me home. This is a rotten world; but there is still one thing in it that remains sacred even to the rottenest of us, and that is a horse.

THE BOYS. Good. Well said, Blanco. Thats straight.

BLANCO. You have a right to your horse, Sheriff; and if I could put you in the way of getting it back, I would. But if I had that horse I shouldn't be here. As I hope to be saved, Sheriff--or rather as I hope to be d.a.m.ned; for I have no taste for pious company and no talent for playing the harp--I know no more of that horse's whereabouts than you do yourself.

STRAPPER. Who did you trade him to?

BLANCO. I did not trade him. I got nothing for him or by him. I stand here with a rope round my neck for the want of him. When you took me, did I fight like a thief or run like a thief; and was there any sign of a horse on me or near me?

STRAPPER. You were looking at a rainbow, like a d.a.m.ned silly fool instead of keeping your wits about you; and we stole up on you and had you tight before you could draw a bead on us.

THE SHERIFF. That don't sound like good sense. What would he look at a rainbow for?

BLANCO. I'll tell you, Sheriff. I was looking at it because there was something written on it.