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They crowded close, a little ring of curious faces, about me and the dead man on the floor, and as a babel of talk uprose a tall, lean man pushed his way into the circle, Captain Speer of the Moon at his heels.

“I guess I’ll have to take you in just for luck,” the stranger said to me. “I’m town marshal. This killin’ business has got t’ stop.”

He took me by the arm, and as he did so the cowpuncher who had looked down at Tupper stepped in between us, breaking the marshal’s hold.

“Not this time, Bax,” he said softly. “Play fair or keep out uh the game. Yuh stay mighty close in your hole when a gun-fighter hits the town, and I’ll be damned if you build up your reputation by arrestin’ a kid. This red-muzzler came in huntin’ trouble, and he found it. It was on the square, and yuh ain’t goin’ to put nobody in your stinkin’ calaboose—not to-night. You and me don’t hitch on that proposition.”

For a second or two it seemed as if there might be another clash. Behind the two a space cleared at the first words, and I noticed more than one cowpuncher hitch his gun-belt forward. For myself, I was too dazed to realize the exact turn of affairs, and I cared less. Tupper, at least, would trouble me no more, and for that I was truly glad. But there was no mix-up, nor even a harsh word. The marshal weakened. If he had intended to take me he changed his mind after a brief glance at the faces of the men who were watching him with silent intentness.

“If that’s the way yuh feel about it, all right,” he said—with an indifference that his flushed face belied. He turned on his heel and walked out, Captain Speer following.

“Yuh bet it’s all right,” the cowpuncher flung after him derisively.

Then to me: “Throw a jolt uh Bourbon into yuh, kid, and you’ll feel better. Yuh made a good fight. But let me tell yuh somethin’. Go heeled. And when one uh these rough-necked fist-fighters jumps yuh, ventilate him. Show your claws a time or two, and these would-be bad actors’ll leave yuh strictly alone. Say, Mr. Bar-slave let’s have one pronto.”

Three or four of them picked up the carcass of the Moon’s mate and lugged it unceremoniously out to a rear room, and then the crowd lined up at the bar, the play at the wheel went on, the men at the faro-table who had turned on their stools to watch the fight again began to place their bets. Life ran too full and strong there to be long disturbed by the passing of any man.

My self-appointed champion—who, I now discovered, was just drunk enough to welcome disturbance in any form whatsoever—and the young fellow with whom I had been speaking before the row, wiped the blood off my face and doctored the eye that Tupper had come near gouging from its socket. And while they were thus ministering to me another stockhand clanked in from the street.

“Say, Matt, yuh sure stirred up somethin’,” he announced. “This the kid that got action on the St. Louis jasper? Well, there’s goin’ to be a healthy ruction round here over that, let me tell yuh. Bax is red-eyed over yuh runnin’ a whizzer on him, and he’s collectin’ a posse to take both of yuh in. Don’t yuh reckon we better drift for camp, Matt?”

Matt smiled and beckoned to some of the others. “Not by a long shot!” he drawled. “Whenever old Ed Bax runs me out uh town, it’ll be in the good-by wagon. I’m goin’ to see that this kid gets a square deal. If Bax or anybody else wants me let ’em come and get me. Will the rest uh you fellows stand pat?”

In varying stages of hilarity they crowded about him and profanely assured him that they would turn Benton inside out and shake the pockets if he but said the word. In the midst of their chatter the man who had brought news of the marshal’s action drew closer and lowered his voice.

“Look here, Matt,” he argued, “you’re runnin’ the outfit and you’re a friend of mine and all that sort of thing, and yuh know that all of us’ll back any sort of play yuh make. But it looks to me like we can do better’n to pull off a big fight. I ain’t plumb chicken-hearted, but Bax is goin’ to come down on us with a bunch uh tin-horn gamblers to help him out, and if this kid’s in sight he’s goin’ to try and take him. Yuh sabe? He’s got to make some kind of a bluff at it, or every pilgrim that comes along’ll run over him. So it’s a cinch that there’ll be more or less gun-play, and the Circle’ll be shy a man or two when it’s over.”

“They ain’t got the nerve, Dick,” Matt declared confidently.

“It don’t take much nerve to start anything like that,” Dick replied. “Somebody’ll reach for his gun, and it’ll be off. Now, Bax ain’t goin’ to jump you—he’s afraid to. If the kid’s with yuh he’s got to. I move we stake this kid to a hoss, and let him drift. That lets him out. And if Bax wants to have it out with yuh on general principles, why, we’ll see it through.”

“Dick’s right,” one of them put in. “The kid’s got to hit the trail, anyhow, and he might as well do it right away quick. That’s the main thing, ain’t it. We started in to help him out, and if we can do it peaceful, we’ll live longer. Bax won’t tackle us unless he just has to.”

“Yuh got me on the run,” Matt frowned. “I’d just as soon dehorn this Bax party to-night as any other time. But I see where the kid better move out, all right. You pilot him, Wall, and catch up one uh them extra hosses, and stake him to that saddle Musky left—I’ll fix it with old Musk when he comes back. He can ride my hoss to camp.”

It was all arranged offhand in less time than I have taken to tell of it, and I was hustled out to where a row of cow-ponies patiently awaited the pleasure of their hard-riding masters. For aught these sons of the plains knew I was a purely worthless bit of human driftwood. But I don’t think they gave a thought to the matter. There was only one thing to be done, in their estimation, and they proceeded to do it without consulting me or doing very much talking about it themselves. So very shortly I found myself straddle of the Circle foreman’s horse and jogging out of Benton. Beside me, young Wall rode silently until we reached the top of the long hill that slopes to the town. Then he shook his horse into a lope, and broke into cheerful whistling.

I, however, was far short of the whistling mood. The thing I should have done I was afraid to do. Ordinarily, my instinct would have been to face the music. I was unrepentant for the part I had played in the extinction of Tupper. Nor would I, if I had calmly weighed the chances for and against, have felt any fear of consequences before the law. But my experience with the law, in those days, was a void. That which we do not understand we usually fear, and that night I was stricken with a swift fear of the law. I had killed, and there was a penalty. My spirit revolted at the thought of a jail. Likewise, the quick action of those Circle cowpunchers made a deep impression on me. If incarceration was so to be avoided that they were willing to back their deeds with gunpowder, I wanted no phase of incarceration in my experience. Better the open, an unknown country, and whatever might befall therein, than to lie in Benton “calaboose”—which, to my disturbed mind, was a synonym for a place of vague horrors.

I thought of standing my ground, of taking chances on Bax the marshal and the Benton jail, until the Moon could reach St. Louis and apprise Bolton of my need—and then I shuddered at the thought that the thing might be settled beyond interference before he could make the long river journey. I had heard and read more or less of hasty trials in the West; I had killed a man in what seemed to me a barbarous fashion; I did not know what the authorities, self-constituted or otherwise, might do to me—and I hadn’t the nerve to stay and find out. If they should hang me, thought I, I shall be a long time dead. Flight, under these circumstances, made the strongest appeal to my excited imagination.

Such was the chaotic state of my ideas when Wall pulled up his horse, and I saw the white glimmer of tents close at hand.

“Night-hawk’s got the bunch over here, I think,” said he. “Seems like I hear the bells. Anyhow, you stay here and I’ll get yuh a caballo that can drift.”

He trotted off, leaving me standing by the clear-cut outline of a wagon. Away off in the semi-dark—for the moon was now risen—I heard a sudden scurry of hoofs, an accentuated jangling of two or three small bells. Presently Wall came loping back leading a blaze-faced sorrel horse.

From under the forward end of the wagon he dragged a saddle, a bridle and a saddle-blanket.

“There,” he said, “there’s a good rig, barrin’ spurs—which yuh won’t need much. And a good hoss to put it on. Go to it.”

The stock saddle, with its high horn and deep seat, was not so different from what I’d been used to—except as to weight. The double-cinch apparatus bothered me a little, but when Wall explained the uses of the latigo and the manner of its tying, I got my horse saddled properly—the small imps of uneasy haste spurring me on. Then I swung up to try the stirrups, and found that I had a restive brute under me. He plunged once or twice, but I kept his head in the air, and finally straightened him out. Wall nodded approval.

“I wasn’t dead sure yuh could ride him,” he owned. “But I see you’ve got him in your sack, and you’ll find him there when it comes to gettin’ over the ground.”

“I’m all ready now, I think,” said I.

“Wait a minute,” Wall laughed. “Don’t rush off. Bax wouldn’t come into the Circle camp after yuh to-night for two farms in Iowa. Chances are he’s busy right now figuring a way to get a dead safe whack at Matt Dunn. Come on over to the cook-tent and get some grub to tie on your saddle. You’ll need it.”

By the light of a candle he ransacked the grub boxes on the tail end of the cook-wagon. A loaf of bread, some fresh-made biscuits, and a big piece of boiled beef, together with a trifle of pepper and salt this light-hearted, capable youngster wrapped in a bit of burlap and tied behind the cantle of my saddle. And while he munched a piece of beef himself, he gave me explicit directions as to my course.

“Once yuh get over into the MacLeod country,” he concluded, “you’ll be all right. Nobody’ll care a cuss who yuh are nor where yuh come from, so long as yuh behave yourself. This red hoss hasn’t got the Circle brand, though he belongs to the outfit, so they won’t ask no fool questions about him. Yuh ought to pick up a job with some uh them Canadian layouts pretty easy.”

“Oh, wait a minute,” he exclaimed, when I was again about to mount, and he ran over to an outspread canvas-covered bed. He fumbled among the tumbled quilts a moment and came back to me carrying a broad cartridge-belt, on which a bone-handled Colt swung in its leathern scabbard.

“I pretty near forgot this,” he chuckled. “Yuh ain’t heeled, and Lord knows yuh need to be at this stage uh the game. Say, how are yuh off for coin?”

“Man alive!” I cried—and I meant it, “you’ve done more for me now than I can repay in a thousand years. I don’t need money.”

“Oh, yes, yuh do,” he returned, unruffled. “A dollar or two’ll come mighty handy when yuh hit MacLeod, or wherever yuh land. I ain’t goin’ to make yuh rich. Here, and good luck to yuh.”

He pressed a ten-dollar gold piece upon me. Then we shook hands as brothers at parting, and I rode out of the Circle camp on a high-stepping horse, with the Big Dipper and the North Star to guide me to the Canada line.