kill them could you?

"It could be done, and done easily. You have Lauman where he
can't do anything, and I'm not of much account in a fight; so
you've really only one deputy sheriff and two women to get the
best of. You could drag these men out and hang them in the
cottonwoods, and they couldn't raise a hand to defend
themselves. We could do it easily--but when it was done and the
excitement had passed I'd have a picture in my memory that I'd
hate to look at. I'd have an hour in my life that would haunt
me. And so would you. You'd hate to look back and think that
one time you helped kill a couple of men who couldn't fight
back.

"Let the law do it, boys. You don't want them to live, and I
don't; nobody does, for they deserve to die. But it isn't for
us to play judge and jury and hangman here to-night. Let them
get what's coming to them at the hands of the officers you've
elected for that purpose. They won't get off. Hank Graves says
they will hang if it takes every hoof he owns. He said he would
bring Bowman down here to help prosecute them. I don't know
Bowman--"

"I do," a voice spoke, somewhere in the darkness. "Lawyer from
Helena. Never lost a case."

"I'm glad to hear it, for he's the man that will prosecute. They
haven't a ghost of a show to get out of it. Lauman here is
responsible for their safe keeping and I guess, now that he
knows them better, we needn't be afraid they'll escape again.