Two men met beneath her window.

"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.

While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim
spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that,
it won't take us long."

"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.

There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."

"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."

"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."

"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."

"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for
his life."

They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing
red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid.
They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had
been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While
the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed
subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.

What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in
the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no