“Well, it is just hard for a man to like Morgan, Moss,” Thompson said.

Someone near them said, “Whooo, listen to them crazy muckers!”

Mosbie turned to face Thompson. “Listen,” he said. “I have said it, and you have said it too — hooray for Blaisedell for going against those sons of bitches of McQuown’s. He has made McQuown eat it till it comes out of Abe’s ears, and hooray for him, I say. So I say hooray for Morgan too, that is the only man in Warlock that ever helped another out against those backshooting bastards.” He looked back at Grain again, “And I say piss on those that piss on Morgan, for he is a better man than them, whatever he’s supposed to’ve done.”

Grain flushed. “Now, listen, Moss—”

“I’m not through,” Mosbie said. “Now it is funny how all of a sudden McQuown and Curley and them is smelling sweeter and sweeter to people again, I don’t say who, the mealy-mouthed sons of bitches. And all of a sudden it is clear somehow that it is Morgan that’s done everything mean and rotten that ever happened around Warlock, killing piano players and such. And in the whole valley besides, it looks like — riding around dropping off strongboxes to make it look bad for poor, innocent murdering rustlers. It surely is nice for Abe McQuown.”

“Now, see here, Moss,” Grain said. “I don’t hold with McQuown, but—”

“That’s good,” Mosbie said, turning back to the bar again. “I am glad to hear you don’t.”

“They’re coming!” somebody cried. The Lucky Dollar fell abruptly silent. The yelling of the miners was louder.

“Jesus, here they come,” Thompson said, and he and Grain were borne along by the men crowding toward the batwing doors. There was a tramping and a rhythmical shouting now in the street, a burst of singing. The bankers at the layouts were swiftly cashing in the chips. Wheeler tossed his whisky down and looked at Mosbie.

“Want to go watch the hanging, Moss?”

“Hanging, hell,” Mosbie said. “Let’s go watch Blaisedell.” They shouldered their way into the press of men moving toward the doors.

The miners came along Main Street, marching in what must have been ranks when they started, and with a semblance of the martial in their blue shirts and trousers and red sashes. Many of them carried torches or lanterns, and their bearded faces shone sweaty and orange-red in the torchlight. They sang in ponderous unison:

“Oh, my sweetheart’s a burro named Jine!

We work at the old Great Hope mine!

On the dashboard I sit,

And tobacco I spit

All over my sweetheart’s behind!

Good-by, good-by, good-by, Tom Morgan, good-by…”

The singing broke off in a ragged yell. Some tried to continue the tune, while others merely shouted as they went on down Main Street toward the jail, with the dust rising beneath their marching feet and hanging like fog in the darkness. There was a crash of glass as a rock was thrown through Goodpasture’s store window, followed by an outcry of argument and laughter. There were other crashes. Torches were swung from side to side, shedding sparks like Catherine wheels.

“Christ, they will burn the town down!” someone exclaimed, as the men streamed out of the Lucky Dollar in their wake. The street began to fill behind the miners as townsmen came out of the saloons and the Billiard Parlor, and, with the sidewalk loungers, drifted along after the marchers. Outlined against the front of the jail, in the light of the torches, stood a small group of men.

Mosbie and Wheeler crossed Main Street and made their way down to Goodpasture’s corner, where their bootheels grated on broken glass. Goodpasture stood within the darkened store with a shotgun in his hands. “Morgan!” the miners were shouting, all together. “Morgan! Morgan!” They approached the boardwalk before the jail in a broad semicircle, the near end of which moved slowly, the far more rapidly. Carl Schroeder shouted something that was lost in the yelling.

“My God!” Wheeler said. “Look at them go! They’re going right on in!”

The miners advanced steadily toward the six who opposed them: the two deputies, Pike Skinner, Peter Bacon, Tim French, and Chick Hasty. Three of them had shotguns, Bacon a rifle, Gannon and Hasty only handguns. The miners in the front rank began swinging their torches and sending up great arcs of sparks.

Finally they halted and Schroeder’s voice was heard: “First one across this rail gets shot!”

“Tromp them down!” the miners cried. “Morgan! We want Morgan!”

“Give him up, Schroeder! We’ll tramp you down!”

Mosbie said to Wheeler, “By Christ, it looks to be two hundred of them there!”

“Where the hell’s Blaisedell?” a man near them said. “He had better damn well hurry!”

“He’ll be along and back them off,” said another.

“Hell he will,” a third said, with a snicker. “He is soaking it over at Miss Jessie’s. She’ll keep him there, being for those stinking jacks—” He cried out as someone hit him in the mouth.

Mosbie struggled to free himself from those who pressed around him, and flung himself at the man who had spoken; they went down in a cursing pile. Others tried to separate them. “Foul-mouthed son of a bitch!” Mosbie yelled.

On the far corner a miner was haranguing Schroeder. He tried to climb over the rail and Schroeder swung the shotgun barrel down on him. Instantly a wave of miners poured forward over the tie rail. “Moss!” Wheeler shouted. “There they go!”

The boardwalk before the jail was a mass of fighting men. A shotgun was discharged; there was a scream, and the blue-clad figures fled back into the street, leaving one crumpled and shrieking on the boardwalk, with Carl Schroeder standing over him.

“Shot one, by God!” Wheeler said, as Mosbie rejoined him, panting. “Best thing for it, too.”

“Who did it?”

“Carl, looked like.”

“Hey, Carl shot one!”

The miners began to roar with one voice, and the tightly packed mass of them in the street weaved and swayed, the torches waving wildly above them. “Kill them! Kill them! Hang them with Morgan!”

“Boys, they have killed Benny Connors!”

Mosbie leaned against one of the posts that held up the arcade, with Wheeler pressed tightly against him by the men around them. “Oh, Jesus!” a man near them said, over and over, like a prayer. The weaving, uncertain movement of the mob changed, section by section, into a single forward thrust forcing the men in the front rank against the railing. One of the deputies raised his six-shooter and discharged it with a flat shock of sound; still the miners pressed forward, almost in silence now.

“Here he comes!”

“It’s Blaisedell, all right. Here he comes!”

“Thank the good Lord!” Wheeler said.

“Look at the buggy!” someone said, but no one paid any attention to him.

Mosbie clambered up on the tie rail and clung to the post. “You ought to see him!” he called down to Wheeler.

Blaisedell came down the center of Main Street, with the townsmen moving quickly aside before him. He came at a swift, certain, long-legged stride, with his black hat showing above the heads of the men he passed. He did not pause as he came to the edge of the mob of miners, forging straight ahead through them like a knife splitting its way through a pine board. Torchlight gleamed on the barrel of his Colt as he knocked a miner aside with it.

“Kill him too!” someone among the miners cried suddenly. “Don’t let him get up there, boys!”

But Blaisedell went on, unhindered, and finally he stood before the jail among the deputies, taller than any of them. His voice was sudden and loud. “Back off, boys. There’ll be no hanging tonight.”

“I believe he could stand off the U. S. Cavalry,” Wheeler said. The miners in the street remained silent.

“You had better get this one to Doc Wagner,” Blaisedell said, motioning to the miner still groaning on the boardwalk.