"That's the way I want him, and Sorenson, too. I want to see them go up for life, but if not that then hanged. But a life term for both, along with Burkhardt, is my choice. I want them to suffer as my father suffered. Only worse. Dying's too easy for them. Let them have hell here for awhile before they get it on the other side. Let the iron bars and stone walls kill them. I hope they live for twenty years to gnaw out their hearts every day and every night behind steel doors. That wouldn't half pay what they owe. But if they finish in prison, knowing there's no hope, knowing I've put them there for what they did to my father and Jim Dent, knowing that all the money and cattle they stole had slipped through their fingers, that they've lost all they gained and more, that their curses and crimes are crushing their own heads, why, that will help. And Sorenson--Sorenson there every day knowing his son lies a helpless cripple, without the money that has been piled up for him! I couldn't invent a worse hell for him. And that's the hell he's going to have!" Though a man not easy to move, Madden at Weir's cold implacable expression of hatred shivered slightly. Sorenson and his accomplices would be lucky indeed if they died by the rope. CHAPTER XXVIII VORSE Across the main street the two men walked, wearing their hats low and making no answer to shouted questions of those hurrying to the courthouse yard. Already the grounds about the court house and the street in front were jammed with eager, excited Mexicans, thrilled with an expectation of something to happen, though they knew not exactly what. The murderer, the killer, they have taken the killer, was the constant statement tossed from mouth to mouth. "But not the killer they think," Madden said, in a low aside to Weir as they moved ahead on their errand. The pair were now advancing toward the saloon, along the opposite side of the street where a slight shadow afforded them concealment. By the time they came opposite the building they had escaped altogether from the crowd, though looking thither over shoulder they could see the black press of people in the moonlight at the public building; and here the street was empty except for a few belated women and children running toward the assemblage. Madden's hand suddenly gripped the engineer's arm as they were about to step forth from the shadow to cross the street to the saloon. "There he is," the sheriff whispered. Vorse had pushed open the slatted door of his place and stepped outside. In the moonlight his figure and face were clearly visible: his thin whip-cord body and predatory face, and bald head as shiny and hard as a fish-scale. He wore no coat, while his vest hung unbuttoned and open as usual. About his waist was an ammunition belt carrying a holster, as if he were prepared for action.