In a few minutes her husband followed.  The closing of the door was the first warning the judge received of it.

“Who was that?” he interrupted Pierre’s narrative to ask.

“Bill Peabody,” somebody spoke up.  “Said he wanted to ask his wife something and was coming right back.”

Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who re-entered, took off her furs, and resumed her place by the stove.

“I reckon we don’t need to hear the rest of the witnesses,” was Shunk Wilson’s decision, when Pierre had finished.  “We already know they only can testify to the same facts we’ve already heard.  Say, Sorensen, you go an’ bring Bill Peabody back.  We’ll be votin’ a verdict pretty short.  Now, stranger, you can get up an’ say your say concernin’ what happened.  In the meantime, we’ll just be savin’ delay by passin’ around the two rifles, the ammunition, an’ the bullet that done the killin’.”

Midway in his story of how he had arrived in that part of the country, and at the point in his narrative where he described his own ambush and how he had fled to the bank, Smoke was interrupted by the indignant Shunk Wilson.

“Young man, what sense is there in you testifyin’ that way?  You’re just takin’ up valuable time.  Of course you got the right to lie to save your neck, but we ain’t goin’ to stand for such foolishness.  The rifle, the ammunition, an’ the bullet that killed Joe Kinade is against you.  What’s that?  Open the door, somebody!”

The frost rushed in, taking form and substance in the heat of the room, while through the open door came the whining of dogs that decreased rapidly with distance.

“It’s Sorensen an’ Peabody,” some one cried, “a-throwin’ the whip into the dawgs an’ headin’ down river!”

“Now, what the hell—!” Shunk Wilson paused, with dropped jaw, and glared at Lucy.  “I reckon you can explain, Mrs. Peabody.”

She tossed her head and compressed her lips, and Shunk Wilson’s wrathful and suspicious gaze passed on and rested on Breck.

“An’ I reckon that newcomer you’ve been chinning with could explain if he had a mind to.”

Breck, now very uncomfortable, found all eyes centered on him.

“Sam was chewing the rag with him, too, before he hit out,” some one said.

“Look here, Mr. Breck,” Shunk Wilson continued.  “You’ve been interruptin’ proceedings, and you got to explain the meanin’ of it.  What was you chinnin’ about?”

Breck cleared his throat timidly and replied.  “I was just trying to buy some grub.”

“What with?”

“Dust, of course.”

“Where’d you get it?”

Breck did not answer.

“He’s been snoopin’ around up the Stewart,” a man volunteered.  “I run across his camp a week ago when I was huntin’.  An’ I want to tell you he was almighty secretious about it.”

“The dust didn’t come from there,” Breck said.  “That’s only a low-grade hydraulic proposition.”