Warlock

Carl sprang up, knocking his chair over backward. There was a roar outside; it came down Main Street like a flood, and Ga

“Lock the damned door!” Morgan said, and Carl leaped to do it, and flung the key inside the cell. Ga

Miners were streaming around the corner out of Southend Street, more were coming out of the Glass Slipper to join them, and all of them were yelling.

Ga

Gradually the whole mass came to a halt, forming a broad semicircle on the boardwalk and in the street around the front of the jail, all of them yelling still, until Carl raised his Colt and fired into the air.

“Now, what the hell?” Carl said, in the silence.

There was a disturbance in the front rank and Frenchy Martin stepped forward through the settling dust; then old man Heck came out.

“Now you turn over that son of a bitch in there, Deputy!” Frenchy Martin cried.

“He is our meat and no business of yours at all!” old man Heck shouted. “Dirty dog killed Frank Brunk and we are—”

The clamor began again and the miners crowded forward. Ga

“—fair fight,” Frenchy Martin was saying. “And then Frank got him down and that lookout of his shot Frank through the head!”

“Where’s Murch?” someone yelled. “Somebody’d better get that wall-eyed son too!”

“He lit out on a horse!” another replied. “He was moving!”

“You turn over that bloody-bellied gambler, hear!” old Heck said. “I mean, we will tromp you down, Schroeder!”

Ga

Somebody was singing, “We’ll hang Tom Morgan to a sour apple tree!”

Frenchy Martin jumped up on the tie rail, and, clinging to a post, motioned for silence. “Boys, are we going to let them stop us? Are we going to take out that murdering bastard or not? Good old Frank was a friend to us all, and MacDonald set Morgan to kill him, most likely.” The miners roared.

Ga

“Listen!” Carl shouted. “There’s been men took out of here and hung but not while I was here and by God there won’t be, either! Because I can play hell with a good lot of you and Joh

The solid roar went up again, the shoving back and forth. Old man Heck turned and cupped his hands to his mouth to yell, and Ga

“Watch that bull moose over there!” Carl cried, and Ga

“Back off!”

The miner retreated a step, gri

“It’s MacDonald!” Carl said.

MacDonald was in the lead, on a white-faced horse, wearing a checked suit and his hard-hat. In the gathering dust Ga

Abe McQuown was not with them, Ga

“He has brought his Regulators in to do us all down!” Ga

“MacDonald’s come to run his agitators out himself,” Carl said. “Damned if he isn’t, and damned if it is pleasant to be bailed out by such a bunch.”

Someone yelled, “Morgan already did your dirty work for you, Mister Mac!”

“Hold together, fellows!”

“Damned if we will run before a pack of rustlers, MacDonald!”

Carl said mournfully, “What the hell are we going to do, Joh

“Let me by,” he said, and the hand fell away.

“Let the deputy through, boys,” a voice said, and the miners began to move more rapidly aside before him. He came out of the mob not fifty feet from the riders, and he walked on through the dust straight toward MacDonald.

“Pull up!” he said, bringing the shotgun muzzle up to bear on the white-faced horse. MacDonald reined in and the horse stood steady, swinging his head around to feign a bite at MacDonald’s leg. The others reined up also. Wash Haggin gazed contemptuously down at him, Chet Haggin gri

“What’s going on here, Mr. MacDonald?” he said.

“This has nothing to do with you, Deputy,” MacDonald said coldly. “We have constituted ourselves a regulation committee and we know our objectives. It is none of your business. Stand aside.”

“It is my business. You are not coming in here with these people.”

“You caught this posting people out from the marshal, Bud?” Chet Haggin asked.

Ga

“You fool!” MacDonald said. His mouth looked like a trap in his ascetic, coldly handsome face. “We intend to round up some agitators who are bent on making trouble at the Medusa. You won’t stop us. You—”

“Take them out,” he said again. His ribs ached where the butt of the shotgun was clamped against his side, his hand sweated on the barrel. “Out,” he said.

“We’ll come through shooting if we have to, Bud,” Wash said.

Ga

“Morgan already killed Frank for you, Mister Mac!” a miner yelled, and MacDonald scowled.

“Take your people out of town, Mr. MacDonald,” Ga