That's all."
He faced them with a derisive smile upon his weather-beaten face.
Obviously, the Court was impressed, but the fact remained that Jake
Farge was dead, and that someone must have killed him.
"What d'ye say, boys?"
"I say he's lyin'," observed a squatter, whom Thomas Ransom had
discovered ear-marking an unbranded calf.
"Smoky knows that Pap done it," remarked another.
This bolt went home. Smoky's face during the preceding five minutes
had been worth studying. He was quite sure that the old man was lying,
and upon his ingenuous countenance such knowledge, illuminated by
admiration and amazement, was duly inscribed.
"Pap's yarn is too thin," said a gaunt Missourian.
"It's thin as you air," said Ransom contemptuously. "Do you boys think
that I'd spring so thin a tale on ye, if it wasn't true?"
At this they wriggled uneasily. The 'Piker,' with some experience of
fickle crowds, said peremptorily--
"The old man done it, and the young 'un knows he done it. They're jest
two of a kind. Those in favour of hangin' 'em both hold up their
hands. One hand apiece will do."
Slowly, inexorably, the hands went up.
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