“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out Olive, trembling with agitation. “I never heard of a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have decided to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done the thing you accuse him of. If that is what you call prairie law and justice I can only say I never heard of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages couldn’t do worse.” “Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef he’s partic’lar sot on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,” said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive through the narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying himself to his habitual occupation with vigour. She looked at him with a face in which horror and disgust struggled for mastery. “If this horrid murder is committed by your neighbours, Mr. Owen, I shall think that prairie men are a disgrace to civilization,” said Olive. “We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,” remarked Mr. Owen with affability. “I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with a sound very like a sob in her voice. “The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d a mos’ likely come this hyar way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore we’uns could cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him hyar,” observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his head under his saddle flap in order to tighten up the girth a couple of holes. “Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?” said Olive, in passionate anger. “Why didn’t you say so at first, and ask the question like a man, and not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all over the house and see if we’ve got anybody hidden away?” “No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I ain’t agoin’ ter hunt roun’. We ain’t no great shakes at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the prairie, but we allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said you hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess that’ll do for the boys. Mornin’.” Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest of politeness that morning he had certainly scored off Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up Eastern ways. Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That the boys were out hunting for Cotterell was, she knew, but the preliminary to his death, if they caught him. The boys seldom or never let off any one they caught, so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their doings in time past. What was she to do in this difficult dilemma? Should she tell Ezra?