Mason looked him squarely in the eyes, his teeth showing behind his stiff, closely clipped mustache.  Then he deliberately extended his hand, and gripped Hampton’s.  “Of course I believe ye.  Not that you ’re any too blame good, Bob, but you ain’t the kind what pleads the baby act.  Who was the feller?”

“Red Slavin.”

“No!” and the hand grip perceptibly tightened.  “Holy Moses, what ingratitude!  Why, the camp ought to get together and give ye a vote of thanks, and instead, here they are trying their level best to hang you.  Cussedest sorter thing a mob is, anyhow; goes like a flock o’ sheep after a leader, an’ I bet I could name the fellers who are a-runnin’ that crowd.  How did the thing happen?”

Both men were intently observing the ingathering of their scattered pursuers, but Hampton answered gravely, telling his brief story with careful detail, appreciating the importance of reposing full confidence in this quiet, resourceful companion.  The little marshal was all grit, nerve, faithfulness to duty, from his head to his heels.

“All I really saw of the fellow,” he concluded, “was a hand and arm as they drove in the knife.  You can see there where it ripped me, and the unexpected blow of the man’s body knocked me forward, and of course I fell on Slavin.  It may be I drove the point farther in when I came down, but that was an accident.  The fact is, Buck, I had every reason to wish Slavin to live.  I was just getting out of him some information I needed.”

Mason nodded, his eyes wandering from Hampton’s expressive face to the crowd beginning to collect beneath the shade of a huge oak a hundred yards below.

“Never carry a knife, do ye?”

“No.”

“Thought not; always heard you fought with a gun.  Caught no sight of the feller after ye got up?”

“All I saw then was the crowd blocking the door-way.  I knew they had caught me lying on Slavin, with my hand grasping the knife-hilt, and, someway, I couldn’t think of anything just then but how to get out of there into the open.  I ’ve seen vigilantes turn loose before, and knew what was likely to happen!”

“Sure.  Recognize anybody in that first bunch?”

“Big Jim, the bartender, was the only one I knew; he had a bung-starter in his hand.”

Mason nodded thoughtfully, his mouth puckered.  “It’s him, and half a dozen other fellers of the same stripe, who are kickin’ up all this fracas.  The most of ’em are yonder now, an’ if it wus n’t fer leavin’ a prisoner unprotected, darn me if I wud n’t like to mosey right down thar an’ pound a little hoss sense into thet bunch o’ cattle.  Thet’s ’bout the only thing ye kin do fer a plum fool, so long as the law won’t let ye kill him.”

They lapsed into contemplative silence, each man busied with his own thought, and neither perceiving clearly any probable way out of the difficulty.  Hampton spoke first.