the use?"

"_Loco_, of course the Greaser's _loco_," broke in another speaker.
"So's a mad dog _loco_. But about the best thing's to kill it, so'st
it's safer to be roun'."

Silence fell upon the crowd. The Texan continued. "We always did," he
said.

"Yes," said another voice. "That's right. We always did."

"Curly'll never let him go," said one irrelevantly. "Seems to me we
better sen' this Greaser off to the States, put him in a 'sylum, er
somethin'."

"Yes," said the tall Texan; "and I like to know ef that ain't a blame
sight worse'n hangin' a man?"

"That's so," assented several voices. And indeed to these men, born
and bred in the free life of the range, the thought of captivity was
more repugnant than the thought of death.

"The lawyer feller, he ain't to blame," said one apologetically. "He
made things look right plain. He ain't no fool."

"Well, I don't know as he helt no aidge over ole Claib Benson," said
another argumentatively. "Claib puts it mighty powerful."

"Yes, but," said the other eagerly, "Claib means fer hangin' by the
Co'te."

"Shore," said a voice. "Now, I'm one o' the jury, but I says in my own
min', ef we convict this yer man, we got to hang him right away anyway,
'cause we ain't got no jail, an' we kain't afford no guard to watch him
all the time. Now, he'd have to be hung right away, anyhow." This
half apologetically.

"What do most o' you fellers on the jury think? Does this here crazy
business go with you all?"

"Well, kin savvy," replied the juror judicially. "Some o' the boys
think it a leetle tough to hang a feller fer a thing he kain't remember
and that he didn't never think was no harm. It don't look like the
Greaser'd take any one right to where he would shore be convicted, ef
he had of made this here killin'."

"Well," said a conservative soothingly, "let's wait till to-morrer.
Let's let the Co'te set another day, anyhow."

"Yes, I reckon that's right; yes, that's so," said others; "we'd better
wait till to-morrer."

A brief silence fell upon the gathering, a silence broken only by
tinklings or shufflings along the bar. Then, all at once, the sound of
an excited voice rose and fell, the cry of some one out upon the
gallery in the open air. The silence deepened for one moment, and then
there was a surge toward the door.

Far off, over the prairie, there came a little flat, recurrent sound,
or series of sounds, as of one patting his fingers softly