"Oh, it's all right to talk, if yuh feel like talking," Big
Medicine retorted savagely. "I don't." He made a catlike spring
at the foremost man, who happened to be Oleson, and got a
merciless grip with his fingers on his throat, snarling like a
predatory animal over its kill. From behind, Andy, with Weary to
help, pulled him off.
"I didn't mean to--to kill anybody," gasped Oleson, pasty white.
"I heard a lot of shooting, and so I ran up the hill--and the
herders came running toward me, and I thought I was defending my
property and men. I had a right to defend--"
"Defend hell!" Big Medicine writhed in the restraining grasp of
those who held him. "Look at that there! As good hearted a boy as
ever turned a cow! Never harmed a soul in 'is life. Is all your
dirty, stinkin' sheep, an' all your lousy herders, worth that
boy's life? Yuh shot 'im down like a dog--lemme go, boys." His
voice was husky. "Lemme tromp the life outa him."
"I thought you were killing my men, or I never--I never meant
to--to kill--" Oleson, shaking till he could scarcely stand,
broke down and wept; wept pitiably, hysterically, as men of a
certain fiber will weep when black tragedy confronts them all
unawares. He cowered miserably before the Happy Family, his face
hidden behind his two hands.
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