"You've done all the meanness you'll ever do in this world. Poor Dave
Long is the last man you'll ever kill. We're going to do justice right
now."

"Dave Long! I never heard of him," the prisoner repeated mechanically.
"Good God, do you think I'm a murderer?"

One of the men thrust himself forward. "We know it. Y'u and that
hellish partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate. But
y'u made a mistake when y'u come to Fort Lincoln. He lived there
before he went to be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary. I'm his
brother. These gentlemen are his neighbors. Y'u're not going back to
prison. Y'u're going to stay right here under this cottonwood."

If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign
of it. His gray eye passed from one to another of them quietly without
giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.

"You're going to lynch me then?"

"Y'u've called the turn."

"Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?"

"Without giving y'u a chance to escape or sneak back to the
penitentiary."

The thing was horribly unthinkable. The warm mellow afternoon sunshine
wrapped them about. The horses grazed with quiet unconcern. One of
these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with machine-like