There was about a dozen of 'em in the list; and they was told--the notice being posted at the deepo--they had twenty-four hours to get out in; and it was added that them that wasn't out in twenty-four hours would find 'emselves landed on the dumps for keeps. A few of 'em kicked a little--saying it was a free country, and they guessed they'd a right to be where they'd a mind to. But when the Committee said back it just was a free country, and one of the freest things in it was telegraph-poles--as Santa Fé Charley was going to find out for certain, and as them that was ordered to get up and get and didn't would find out along with him--even the kickingest of 'em seen they'd better just shut their heads and andy along. It wasn't till the Committee come to tackle the Sage-Brush Hen there was any trouble--and then they found their drills was against quartz! Two or three of Charley's worst shootings was charged to the Hen, she being 'special friends with him; and just because she was such a good-natured obliging sort of a woman, always wanting to please everybody, she was at the roots of half the fights that started in--so there'd come to be what was called the Hen's Lot out in the cemetery on the mesa, as I've mentioned before. The Committee put her in their list because they knowed for a fact there was bound to be ructions in Palomitas as long as she stayed there; and so they found 'emselves in a deepish hole when she said plump Palomitas suited her, and she didn't mean to be fired. The Hen knowed as well as they did she had a cinch on 'em. If they didn't like her staying, she said, they could yank her up to the next telegraph-pole to Charley's--and then she asked 'em, kind of cool and cutting, if they didn't think hanging a lady would give a nice name to the town! The Committee was in session in the waiting-room at the deepo while the Hen was doing her talking, and Santa Fé--with handcuffs on, and tied to the express messenger's safe--was in the express office, with the door open between. Everybody seen the Hen was right, and hanging her would be ungentlemanly, and nobody seemed to know what they'd better do. While they was all setting still and thinking, Santa Fé spoke up from the express office--saying he had the reputation of the town at heart as much as anybody, and to make a real clean-up the Hen ought to quit along with the others, and if they'd let him have five minutes private talk with her he'd fix things so she'd go.