Fighting is our trade, and we don't mind working at
it. But I wish to tell you right now, and straight off the handle,
that you are simply making a parcel of fools of yourselves. Slavin has
been killed, and nine out of ten among you are secretly glad of it. He
was a curse to this camp, but because some of his friends and
cronies--thugs, gamblers, and dive-keepers--accuse Bob Hampton of
having killed him, you start in blindly to lynch Hampton, never even
waiting to find out whether the charge is the truth or a lie. You act
like sheep, not American citizens. Now that we have pounded a little
sense into some of you, perhaps you'll listen to the facts, and if you
must hang some one put your rope on the right man. Bob Hampton did not
kill Red Slavin. The fellow who did kill him climbed out of the back
window of the Occidental here, and got away, while you were chasing the
wrong man. Mr. Wynkoop saw him, and so did your schoolteacher, Miss
Spencer."
Then Wynkoop stepped gamely to the front. "All that is true, men. I
have been trying ever since to tell you, but no one would listen. Miss
Spencer and I both saw the man jump from the window; there was blood on
his right arm and hand.
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