“Ain’t carin’ what you’re for,” stated Budd in flat finality. “Anybody wishin’ to doubt my authority?” Somehow in the lantern light the man had become as a mountain of purpose; his face, which in daylight looked bland and cherubic, was rock hard. He spoke easily and his movements were deliberate, but there was no single man to raise a voice in further protest. “Bill, you just march in front of me to the store. Rest o’ you night birds walk around a while and cool off. Don’t get no queer ideas about rope and tree limbs; I don’t aim to tolerate foolishness. We’ll stick to plain law.” He marched Bill into the storeroom, shut the door, and put his lantern on the counter. “Regardless of circumstances and greenback bills,” said he, “I reckon I’ll have to tie you up for the night. Don’t aim to make it any harder on you than I have to. There’s blankets on the floor. Git down on ’em, young feller. I’ll bundle you up so’s it won’t bind you.” “This,” said Bill in a kind of restrained fury, “is plumb unreasonable and aggravatin’. First I get my face stepped on, and next they want to lynch me. Now I got to be wound up like a roll of fence wire.” Budd clucked his tongue. “Shore is enough to make a man swear. Git down, Bill. Now take it easy. But sometimes certain moves lead to certain other moves.” Bill submitted to the operation. “Yeah, ain’t that as clear as mud? First you put out yore right foot and then yore left. But if I never do anything else in my life I’m shore goin’ to change that waddy Sam’s complexion. I shore am.” He rested, finally, with his arms and legs more or less tightly bound, and yet Budd had done the trussing cleverly enough to allow the prisoner a certain comfort on his hard bed. Then he strung the free end of the rope through the kitchen door and tied it to a leg of the range. “Reckon if you go to threshing around too much,” he observed, “I’ll hear the stove creakin’. Now I aim to finish off a little business of six hours sleep.” Bill surveyed his bonds and cast a candid eye upon his captor. “Now listen, hombre, if a man wanted to wiggle out o’ this----” Budd looked him in the eye. “You dang fool,” he muttered; “you dang fool.” The captive closed his mouth and opened his eyes a little wider. After a few moments silence he muttered, “Oh.” Then he turned his back to the big storekeeper and fell silent. Budd was as inscrutable as a Chinese idol. He picked up the lantern, went back to his bedroom and blew out the light. “Feel a lot easier in the conscience,” he muttered, “if I didn’t have this cussed piece o’ tin.” He stared at the ceiling and presently was asleep. No more strange sounds from the wagons awoke him that night, and if the kitchen range creaked, he gave no notice that he was aware of it. Yet he seemed fated to be wakened by another noisy event. When gray dawn seeped into the clearing a file of excited men trooped through the house, banged at his door, and brought him up from the pillow with one trenchant question.