"Then why didn't some of you warn this man?" she flamed. "You cowards! Are you afraid of Digger Foss? Oh, I--" "Now, looky-here, Miss Jessamy," soothed the spokesman, "bein' afraid o' Digger Foss ain't got anything to do with it. It wasn't our fight. We had no call to butt in. Men don't do that in a gun country, Miss Jessamy--you know that. This fella pulled on Digger, then lost his nerve. What you told 'im to do, Miss Jessamy, was right. Man ain't got no call to throw down on another one unless he intends to shoot. You know that, Miss Jessamy--you as much as said so." For answer the girl burst into tears. She rose, and the silent men stood back for her. She mounted and rode away without another word, wiping fiercely at her eyes with a handkerchief. Four men carried the dead man away. The rest, obviously in need of a stimulant, crowded in and up to the black bar. Oliver joined them. The weird sight that he had witnessed had left him weak and sick at the stomach. Silently the fat, blond bartender set out whisky glasses, then looked hesitatingly at the stranger. "Go ahead, Swede," encouraged a big fellow at Oliver's left. "He needs one, too. He saw it." The bartender shrugged, thumped a glass toward Oliver, and broke the laws of the land. "What was it all about?" Oliver, encouraged by this confidence, asked of the big, goodnatured man who had vouched for him on sight. The other looked him over. "This fella Dodd," he said, "started something he couldn't finish--that's all. Dodd's had it in for Digger Foss and the Selden boys and some more of 'em for a year. Selden was runnin' cattle on Dodd's land, and Dodd claimed they cut fences to _get_ 'em on. I don't know what all was between 'em. There's always bad blood between Old Man Selden and his boys and the rest o' the Poison Oakers, and somebody. "Anyway," he went on, "this mornin' Henry Dodd comes in and gets the drop on Digger Foss, who's thick with the Seldens, and is one o' the Poison Oakers; and then Dodd ain't got the nerve to shoot. You saw what it cost him. Fill 'em up again, boys." "I can't understand that girl," Oliver remarked. "Why, she rode in and told the man to shoot--to kill." "And wasn't she right?" "None of the rest of you did it, as she pointed out to you."