an' get a
couple more pairs of blankets, an' grub enough fer a week for four, an'
get that onto him, an' have all them horses around to the side door of
the hotel in twenty minutes, or I'll bust you wide open an' fill your
hide with prickly pears."

The half-breed nodded his understanding and slipped onto his horse as
the Texan entered the hotel. Passing through the office where a
coal-oil lamp burned dimly in a wall-bracket, he stepped into the
narrow hallway and paused with his eyes on the bar of yellow light that
showed at the bottom of the door of Number 11.

"Most any fool thing would do to tell the girl. But I've got to make
it some plausible to put it acrost on Jennie. I'm afraid I kind of
over-played my hand a little when I let her in on this, but--damn it!
I felt kind of sorry for the girl even if it was her own fool fault
gettin' into this jack-pot. I thought maybe a woman could kind of
knock off the rough edges a little. Well, here goes!" He knocked
sharply, and it was a very grave-faced cowboy who stepped into the room
and closed the door behind him. "I've be'n doin' quite some feelin'
out of the public pulse, as the feller says, an' the way things looks
from here, the pilgrim is sure in bad. You see, the jury is bound to
be made up of cow-men an' ranchers with a sheep-man or two mixed in.
An' they're all denizens that Choteau County is infested with. Now a
stranger comin' in that way an' kind of pickin' one of us off, casual,
like a tick off'n a dog's ear, it won't be looked on with favour----"

Jennie interrupted, with a belligerent forefinger wagging almost
against the Texan's nose: "But that Jack Purdy needed killin' if ever
any one did. He was loose an'----"

"Yes," broke in Tex, "he was. I ain't here to pronounce no benediction
of blessedness on Purdy's remains. But, you got to recollect that most
of the jury, picked out at random, is in the same boat--loose, an'
needin' killin', which they know as well as you an' me do, an'
consequent ain't a-goin' to establish no oncomfortable precedent.
Suppose any pilgrim was allowed to step off'n a train any time he
happened to be comin' through, an' pick off a loose one? What would
Choteau County's or any other county's he-population look like in a
year's time, eh? It would look like the hair-brush out here in the
wash-room, an' you could send in the votin' list on a cigarette paper.
No, sir, the pilgrim ain't got a show if he's got to face a ju