"Anything to say, young feller?"
Smoky Jack made a gallant attempt to bluff a man who had played his
first game of poker before Smoky was born.
"Yer dead right. It _is_ a relic of a big buck I killed with that
ther gun las' week. Flopped into a mare's nest, you hev!"
"That shell was fired to-day," said the 'Piker,' authoritatively. "The
powder ain't dry in it. Boys,"--he glanced round at the circle of grim
faces--"let's take the San Lorenzy road."
* * * * *
The squatters, reinforced by half a dozen men who had not entered the
adobe, escorted their prisoners down the hill till they came to a
large live oak, a conspicuous feature of the meadow beyond the creek.
The moon shone at the full as she rose majestically above the pines
which fringed the eastern horizon. In the air was a smell of tar-weed,
deliciously aromatic; and the only sounds audible were the whispering
of the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods and the tinkle of the creek
on its way to the Pacific.
Smoky inhaled the fragrance of the tar-weed, and turned his blue eyes
to the left, where, in the far distance, a tall pine indicated the
north-west corner of his ranch. Neither he nor Ransom expected to
reach San Lorenzo that night. They were setting out on a much longer
journey.
Under the live oak Judge Lynch opened his court. No time was wasted.
The squatters were impressed with the necessity of doing what had to
be done quickly. The big 'Piker' spoke first.
"Boys, ain't it true that in this yere county there ain't bin a single
man executed by the law fer murder in the first degree?"
"That's right. Not a one!"
"And if a man has a bit o' dough behind him, isn't it a fact that he
don't linger overly long in San Quentin?"
"Dead sure snap."
"Boys, this is our affair. We're pore; we've neither money nor time to
waste in law courts, but we've got to show some o' these fellers as is
holding land as don't belong to 'em that we mean business first, last,
and all the time."
There was a hoarse murmur of assent.
"The cold facts are these," continued the speaker. "We all know that
Ransom and Jake Farge hev had trouble over the claim that Farge staked
out inside o' Ransom's fence; an' we know that Ransom has no more
right to the land he fenced than the coyotes that run on it. For
twenty years he's enjoyed the use of what isn't his'n, an' I say he'd
oughter be thankful. Anyways, we come down to the events of yesterday
and to-day. Yesterday he tole Jake that he'd shoot him on sight if he,
Jake, come on to the land which Uncle Sam says is his. Do you deny
that?"
"That's 'bout what I tole him," drawled Ransom.
"To-day Jake was shot dead like a dog by somebody who was a-waitin'
for him, hidden in the brush. The widder, pore soul, suspicioning
trouble, follered Jake, and found him with a bullet plumb through his
heart. She heard the shot, and she swore that it come from Ransom's
side o' the fence. And she knows and we know that there isn't a man
'twixt Maine and Californy with a grudge agen Jake, always exceptin'
this yere Ransom."
"That's so," growled the Court.
"Boys, Jake was murdered with a bullet of small bore--not with a
bullet outer a Winchester, sech as most of us carry. Whar did that
ther bullet come from, boys?"
"Outer a Sharp rifle."
"Jest so. Who fired it? Mebbe we'll never know that. But we know this.
'Twas fired by one o' these yere men. One was and is accessory to
t'other. The boy admits he's sweet on Ransom's gal; an' mebbe he did
this dirt to win her. And he swears that Pap was in his corral at six.
That's a lie or it ain't, as may be. If he was in the corral, t'other
wasn't. Boys--I won't detain ye any longer. Those in favour of hangin'
Thomas Ransom an' John Short here and now hold up their hands!"
The men present held up their hands. One or two of the more
bloodthirsty held up both hands.
"That'll do. Those in favour of takin' the prisoners to San Lorenzy
hold up their hands. Nary a hand! Prisoners ye've bin tried by yer
feller-men, and found guilty o' murder in the first degree. Have ye
anything to say?"