"There's plenty that need it--if the Committee only had sense enough
to pick 'em out and leave the rest alone," growled Bill, going from
table to table, tipping and testing for other legs that wobbled.

Jim sensed the rebuff in his tone and went back to the door, around
which a knot of men engaged in desultory conjectures while they waited
expectantly. A large tent that Perkins had found convenient as a
temporary jail for those unfortunates upon whom his heavy hand fell
swiftly, stood next to Bill's place; and it spoke eloquently of the
manner in which the Committee then worked, that men gathered there
instinctively at the first sign of trouble. For when the Committee
went out after culprits, it did not return empty-handed, as the
populace knew well. Zealous custodians of the law were they, as Bill
had said; and though they might have exchanged much of their zeal for
a little of Bill's sense of justice (to the betterment of the town),
few of the waiting crowd had the temerity to say so.

Up the street, necks (whose owners had not thought it worth while to
wade through the sand to the scene of the shooting) were being craned
towards the flat behind the town, where the Captain and a few of his
men had hurried at the first shot.

"They're comin'," Jim announced, thrusting his head into the gambling
hall and raising his voice above the sound of the boss's nail-driving.

"Well--what of it?" snapped Bill. "Why don't you yell at me that the
sun is going to set in the west to-night?" Bill drove the head of a
four-cornered, iron nail clean out of sight in a table top. And Jim
prudently withdrew his head and turned his face and his attention