“I wouldn’t lift a hand for him,” Scot answered. “I’m still thinking of that mother’s aching heart, boys. Not one of us here was ever good enough to his mother. We’re a hard, tough lot. We’ve travelled a heap of crooked trails since we were kids at our mothers’ knees. Pete, you hard-boiled old sinner, I met your mother in Sacramento last year, and that little lady began to tell me about what a good boy you’ve always been to her, how you send her money now, and how when you were a freckled runt of a ten-year-old——” Red as a beet, Pete interrupted roughly: “Oh, hire a hall, Scot.” McClintock pushed his advantage home. The theme of his talk was mother love. These big, overgrown boys reacted to it because each one of them had enshrined in his own heart the memory of a mother he had many times hurt and often neglected. The point Scot made was that they could now pay part of the debt they owed their own mothers. It scored heavily. “I reckon Scot’s right,” someone spoke up. “If it’s gonna worry the lady any, might as well postpone the necktie party.” Mobs are fickle and unstable of purpose. This one’s mind began to veer. Inside of five minutes Scot had the members of the lynching party moulded to his view. They had no desire whatever to hang the poltroon who had stabbed their friend, or, at least, the desire was subordinated to a more imperative one. The rescued man tried to whine out a blend of thanks and justification to the gambler. Scot looked him over scornfully and turned on his heel without a word. CHAPTER X TILL TAPPING The loyalty Mollie had cherished to her early ideal of marriage burned low for lack of fuel to feed upon. Her husband had practically deserted her. When he returned to camp it was to bully money out of her or to get some of their small store of belongings to sell. In the intervals she might starve for all he cared. There came a day when she definitely broke with her past life. She moved into town and opened a small shop where she sold home-cooked food to miners eager to buy her cakes, cookies, pies, and doughnuts. She called her place the Back Home Kitchen, and she did a thriving business. The members of the fire companies patronized the store a great deal, and since they ran to a large extent the political and social life of Virginia City, as they had done in San Francisco a few years earlier, her shop became so much the vogue that she had to employ a Chinese assistant to help with the cooking. Scot watched the venture but offered no advice. He had, in fact, not spoken to Mollie since the day after the funeral. Vicky had been taken to Carson by Hank Monk on the stage and was writing back badly spelled but enthusiastic letters to her sister. The cards had been re-shuffled, McClintock told himself, and he was no longer sitting in at the game.