So much was done, then.  And now why not make sure that the very last means of retreat for the pair was blocked?  The girl went to get the horses.  And if, by the one chance in twenty, the two should actually break out of the jail, it would remain to Cartwright to kill the horses or the men.  He did not care which.

He slipped behind the hotel and presently saw the girl come out of the stable with her horse.  He followed, skulking softly behind her until he reached the appointed place among the cottonwoods.  The trees grew tall and thick of trunk, and about their bases was a growth of dense shrubbery.  It was a simple thing to conceal two saddled horses in a hollow which sank into the edge of the shrubbery.

Cartwright’s first desire was to couch himself in shooting distance.  Then he remembered that shooting with a revolver by moonlight was uncertain work.  He slipped away to the hotel and got a rifle ready enough.  Men were milling through the lower rooms of the hotel.  The point of discussion had long since been passed.  The ringleaders had made up their minds.  They went about with faces so black that those who were asked to join, hardly had the courage to question.  There was broad-voiced rumor growing swiftly.  Something was wrong—­something was very wrong.  It was like that mysterious whisper which goes through the forest before the heavy storm strikes.  Something was terribly wrong and must be righted.

How the ringleaders had reasoned, nobody paused to ask.  It was sufficient that a score of men were saying:  “The sheriff figures on letting Sinclair and Arizona go.”

A typical scene between two men.  They meet casually, one man whistling, the other thoughtful.

“What’s the bad luck?” asks the whistler.

“No time for whistling,” says the other.

“Say, what you mean?”

“I ask you just this,” said the gloomy man, with a mystery of much knowledge in his face:  “Are gents around here going to be murdered, and the murderers go free?”

“Well?”

“Sinclair and Arizona—­that’s what’s up!  They’re going to bust loose.”

“I dunno about Arizona, but Sinclair, they say, is a square shooter.”

“Who told you that?  Sinclair himself?  He’s got a rep as long as my arm.  He’s a bad one, son!”

“You don’t say!”

“I do say.  And something has got to be done, or Sour Creek won’t be a decent man’s town no more.”

“Let me in.”  Off they went arm in arm.

Cartwright saw half a dozen little interviews of this nature, as he entered the hotel.  Men were excited, they hardly knew why.  There is no need for reason in a mob.  One has only to cry, “Kill!” and the mob will start of its own volition to find something that may be slain.  Also, a mob has no conscience and no remorse.  It is the nearest thing to a devil that exists, and it is also the nearest thing to the divine mercy and courage.  It is braver than the bravest man; it is more timorous than the most fearful; it is fiercer than a lion, gentler than a lamb.  All these things by turns, and each one to the exclusion of all the others.