out justice. Justice!" He laughed sardonically. "Poor old lady, she
couldn't stop within forty miles of Perkins' Committee if she had
forty bandages over her eyes, and both ears plugged with cotton!
You wait till their farce of a trial is over. You may get off, by a
scratch--I hope so. But unless Bill Wilson--"

"Aw, yuh needn't pin no hopes on Bill Wilson!" came a heavy, malicious
voice through the tent wall. "All hell can't save yuh, Jack Allen!
You've had a ride out to the oak comin' to yuh for quite a while, and
before sundown you'll get it."

"Oh! Is that so, Shorty? Say, you're breaking the rules, you old
pirate; you're talking to the prisoners without permission. As the
Captain's most faithful dog Tray, you'd better shoot yourself; it'll
save the town the trouble of hanging you later on!" He smoked calmly
while Shorty, on guard without, growled a vilifying retort, and the
other guards snickered.

"Ah, brace up!" he advised his quaking companion again. "If my company
doesn't damn you beyond all hope, you may get out of the scrape. You
didn't have a gun, and you're a stranger and haven't said naughty
things about your neighbors. Cheer up. Life looks just as good to me
as it does to you. I love this old world just as well as any man that
ever lived in it, and I'm not a bit pleased over leaving it--any more
than you are. But I can't see where I could better matters by letting
myself get wobbly in the knees. I'm sorry I didn't make a bigger fight
to keep my guns, though. I'd like to have perforated a few more of our
most worthy Committee before I quit; our friend Shorty, for instance,"
he stipulated wickedly and clearly, "and the Captain."