Dill said nothing.

“Others who seem to have felt the way you do have had the decency to leave here,” he went on, still staring into Dill’s ugly face. “I suggest that you do so. You are not worth her care, nor my trouble. You are not worth anyone’s trouble.”

“Oh, I’ll be moving out,” Dill said. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

“I suggest that you buy a stock of pencils from Mr. Goodpasture and sell them on the street. That way you will not be a charity case.”

“I’d rather. Don’t think I wouldn’t.”

The doctor took a step toward Dill, who backed away. He saw Jimmy Fitzsimmons watching him worriedly and he fought to keep his voice level. “Let me tell you something, Dill. I don’t know what you have been saying here, but if you manage to cause her any pain in your stupid spite, I will do my best to break that head I mended for you.”

“Easy, Doc,” Fitzsimmons whispered.

“I mean exactly what I say!” he said, and Dill retreated before him. “Did you hear me, Dill?”

“Like Morgan busting Stacey, huh, Doc?” Dill said.

“Exactly.”

Dill shrugged cockily, and moved over to his own cot; he stood there glancing back out of the corners of his eyes.

“Go on!” the doctor said. “Get out, Dill!”

He heard Ben Tittle call him from the doorway, and he swung around. “Miss Jessie wants to see you, Doc.”

Abruptly his rage died. Almost he could feel sorry for Dill and the others, each of whom fought his own lonely battle to maintain a semblance of pride. He walked out past Tittle and went down the hall. There were a number of miners standing inside the entryway now, worried-looking, stern-faced men in clean blue clothing, several with six-shooters stuck inside their belts. All greeted him gravely. There were some, he knew, who were responsible men, men with dignity who could act for themselves if they were shown the way. He wondered why he must always be so short with them.

He knocked on Jessie’s door, and entered when she called to him. She stood facing him with her fists clenched at her sides, and tears showing in her round eyes. He had never seen her look so angry.

“What is it, Jessie?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

“That hateful little man! Oh, that hateful, jealous little man!”

“Who?”

“The deputy!” she said, as though he had been stupid not to know. “I don’t see why he couldn’t do it! It is just that he is so jealous. So little! He—”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Jessie. Gannon wouldn’t do what?”

She made an effort to compose herself. The little muscles tugged at the corners of her mouth, and it was, he thought, as if those same muscles were connected to his heart. “What is it, Jessie?” he said, more gently.

“I went to tell him that Henry, Buck, and Will had gone to Bright’s City to see that he was removed,” she said. “I told him I — that I didn’t know whether they would succeed or not. And I— Well, I thought he would leave if I asked him, David.”

“Did you?” he said, and wondered how she could presume such a thing, and what she hoped to gain by it.

“I thought if I asked him,” she said. The tears shone in her eyes again; she daubed at them with her handkerchief. “I thought if I made him understand—” Then she said furiously, “Do you know what he said? He said that Clay could not do it!”

“You asked him to quit so that Blaisedell could be deputy,” he said, and, although he nodded, he knew that Gannon was right. There were many reasons why Blaisedell could not do it, but he would rather have slapped her face than try to reason with her.

“Hateful, jealous, smug little man!” Jessie said. She put her handkerchief to her mouth in what seemed an unwarranted degree of grief.

“What is it, Jessie?” he said again, and put an arm around her straining shoulders.

“Oh, it is Clay,” she whispered. “Clay told him I had lied, and he was so smug. Oh, I hate him so!” She drew away from him, and threw herself down on her bed. She sobbed into the pillow. He thought he heard her say, “If he would leave no one would know!”

He went to sit beside her, and after a time she took hold of his hand with her tight hand, and held it against her damp cheek. “Oh, David,” she whispered. “You are so kind to me, and I have been such a terrible person.”

“You are not terrible, Jessie.”

“I lied to him. And he found it out.”

“Blaisedell?” he asked, for it was not clear.

She nodded; he felt her tears warm and wet on his hand. “I lied to him about what Carl Schroeder said.”

He said nothing, staring down at her tumbled ringlets; gently, awkwardly, he stroked his left hand over them. She sobbed again.

“I told him I had even lied for him. That’s how he knew. But I did it for him! I thought if I could just ask the deputy to—”

“Hush!” he said. “Not so loudly, Jessie. It will be all right.”

“Clay hates me, he must hate me!”

“No one could hate you, Jessie.”

There was a knock at the door. “Doc, it’s time for the meeting.” It was Fitzsimmons’ voice.

“Just a moment,” he called. He stroked his hand over Jessie’s hair, and said, “It will be all right, Jessie,” without even thinking what he was saying. He looked down at the brown head beneath his hand. She had done something that had been unworthy of her — for Clay Blaisedell. She had dedicated herself to him. He prayed with a sudden fury for a return of the days when there had been no Clay Blaisedell in Warlock.

“But what am I going to do now?” Jessie said. “David, if Gannon would only leave no one would believe him!”

He did not answer, for Fitzsimmons was knocking again. “Doc, they are starting! You had better come.”

Jessie was sobbing quietly when he left her, and Fitzsimmons looked relieved to see him. “Come on! Daley is saving us a place!”

There were about thirty men in the dining room. The plank tables and benches had been pushed back against the walls, and men sat on them and on two ranks of chairs at the far end of the room beyond which were Frenchy Martin and old man Heck, at Jessie’s table. There were a number of miners standing. The doctor noticed that although most of the men were from the Medusa, there was also a contingent from the Sister Fan, and, it seemed, at least one from each of the other mines. This was the skeleton of the Miners’ Union that had been set up under Lathrop’s leadership, had lapsed since, but had not been forgotten.

Daley had saved two chairs for them in the front row. Fitzsimmons sat down stiffly, adjusting his hands before him, and the doctor was aware that Fitzsimmons’ habit of holding them so, was, in part, to call attention to them — like a soldier’s wounds, as some kind of proof of adulthood and initiation before the rest.

Old man Heck waved at the rear of the dining room, and the door there was shut and latched. Heck was scowling beneath his wiry gray eyebrows as he slapped his hand on the table for order. There was a nasty bruise along the side of his head, and a scraped place on his forehead that gave him a fierce expression. Martin, beside him, had a bruised eye, and, with his long, waxed mustaches, looked equally fierce.

Old man Heck said, “The Regulators have gone for sure. We have been up to see for ourself. There is a pack of foremen there and a barricade they put up on the road, but that’s all. Now; everybody knows what’s the question here.”

“I’m for it,” someone said quietly, and the doctor swung around to see that it was Bigge who had spoken. He had thought better of Bill Bigge, who flushed to meet his gaze.

“I am for it,” Frenchy Martin said. “They have pushed it down our throat long enough. Now we bite it off, eh?”

Fitzsimmons got to his feet.

“Who let him in?” someone growled.

Fitzsimmons stood holding his burnt hands before him. He said, “I’d like to ask Doc what he thinks, if everybody is agreeable.”