laughed at him.

"Aw, put it down, Bud," Park admonished. "That's too dangerous a toy for
you to be playing with--and yuh know damn well yuh can't hit anything."

"I killed a steer once," Thurston reminded him meekly, whereat the laugh
hushed; for they remembered.

"I know I can't shoot straight," he went on frankly, "but you're taking
that much the greater chance. If I have to, I'll cut loose--and there's
no telling where the bullets may strike."

"That's right," Park admitted. "Stand still, boys; he's more dangerous
than a gun that isn't loaded. What d'yuh want, m'son?"

"I want to talk to you for about five minutes. I've got a game leg, so
that I can neither run nor fight, but I hope you'll listen to me. The
Wagners can't get away--they're locked up, with a deputy standing over
them with a gun; and on top of that they're handcuffed. They're as
helpless, boys, as two trapped coyotes." He looked down over the crowd,
which shifted uneasily; no one spoke.

"That's what struck me most," he continued. "You know what I thought of
Bob, don't you? And I didn't thank them for boring a hole in my leg; it
wasn't any kindness of theirs that it didn't land higher--they weren't
shooting at me for fun. And I'd have killed them both with a clear
conscience, if I could. I tried hard enough. But it was different then;
out in the open, where a man had an even break. I don't believe if I
had shot as straight as I wanted to that I'd ever have felt a moment's
compunction. But now, when they're disarmed and shackled and altogether
helpless, I couldn't walk up to them deliberately and 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