Sentence mounted on sentence with growing stress of passionate force, and then came a new silence as the old man stood there, weaponless and rigid, glaring into the face of the younger, who, with pistol half-raised, burned slowly from the nape of his sinewy neck to the top of his forehead in an angry wave of color. But suddenly at his back young Jake felt, rather than heard, a low murmur, and he knew, as it grew and traveled among his clansmen, that at a word from this gray-beard, his people would repudiate the young pretender and follow the aged and rightful leader into war, or--which was a more stressful test--into peace. While this question of family supremacy was argued on the Falkins' side of the path, the Spooners stood silent, intruding no evidence of interest. They simply waited. "You have assumed to be the leader of the Falkinses," went on the old man. "By what authority? Tell me that!" "My pap war the head of our kith an' kin," retorted Jake hotly; "an' I'm his son. He's done been murdered, an' I hain't the sort of a Falkins that sets still an' lets them things go on." And so capricious is the spirit of a mob that at that statement, as though they had been momentarily misled, a new murmur of concurrence in the sentiment rose from the Falkins side and one or two voices--well in the protected rear--shouted, "No, and we hain't nuther!" "Silence!" roared old McAllister again. "Let's talk about one thing at a time. You gave me your hand to wait until I had had my say, and you tried to break your bond. When I have had my say, you men can talk about what you are going to do. If you make a move before I've uttered my final word--either you men over there--" with a wave of the hand to the right, "or you over there--" with a wave to the left--"you stamp both crowds with the brand of perjury. And, when I talk, the first thing I shall demand is that the Falkinses either change their names or get a grown man with brains in his head to lead them." The speaker paused, and the crowd waited, tense and breathless, but now the rifles again hung at their bearers' sides, or rested with grounded stocks. Then young Jake inquired in a sneering drawl: "Wall, why don't ye begin yore speech?" "I'm going to, but first I'm going to ask your uncle, Job Falerin, and Jim Falerin and Mark McDonald to come out here." Slowly three men worked their way to the front of the crowd. "Men," instructed McAllister Falkins, with the decisiveness of a general officer who has no doubt of instant obedience for his commands, "take that boy's gun away from him until I'm through." For a moment they hesitated, and the boy himself tightened his grip on his weapon until his knuckles showed in white spots. McAllister Falkins caught the wrist and held it; without a word the three elder kinsmen surrounded and disarmed the young insurgent. Instantly, McAllister Falkins wheeled to face the Spooners.