ls
spawned by harpies! They say there is no devil to-day! Hoh!" The old
man puffed the heresy from his pursed lips. "The beasts don't prey on
their own 'cepting the rats that starve; but, man, there's no
explanation of his self-destruction 'cepting the old fashioned one,
Wayland. 'He was possessed by a devil.'"

The Ranger had dismounted and was prodding the ash-heap with his heavy
boot sole. Then, he gave the embers a smart flap with his whip. The
blackened hub of a wheel went circling out. Suddenly, Wayland turned
away his face, white and nauseated, hardened to resolution granite as
the rocks. Eyeless sockets of a skeleton face protruded from the
ashes; and on the ground were stains which the rains had not washed
out. It was then Wayland noticed the bloody thumb marks round the
canvas front of the wagon seat where the driver had been dragged down.

For a little time neither man spoke. But, was it not the natural
ending of brutality unleashed of law; of crime left alone by the good?

"To mutilate thousands of sheep was damnable enough," said Wayland;
"but--this?"

The old frontiersman had picked up coat and boots flung aside the night
before. He stood holding by his horse's mane looking down. "And this
is a white man's land," he said. "To this have y' prostituted freedom
bought by th' blood of saints an' martyrs? Not in th' heat o' passion,
but for filthy gain, has a free people come to this? _The heads o'
kings fell on the bloody block for less crime in days not so soft
spoken as these_. Is y'r freedom, freedom to right or to wrong? Is it
to send y'r Nation smash over the precipice? Wayland, _is this
Democracy_?"

The Ranger did not answer for a moment.

"No," he said quietly, "it isn't Democracy any more than your Robber
Barons were Monarchy! Don't you make that mistake; this is Anarchy,
the Anarchy of unrestrained greed! You fought it in your plundering
Scotch Robber Barons long ago! We have to fight it to-day in our
plundering plutocrats!"

CHAPTER XII

THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW VEILS ITSELF

"Do you mean me to believe," the old frontiersman drew himself up to
the full height of British superiority to everything outside the island
of its own circumscribed knowledge, "do you mean me to believe that if
any of these poor herders had escaped as witnesses, we'd not have been
able to send these blackguard murderers to the gallows?"

The Ranger had signalled for some of the road gan