"Thar's a man hyar in this room," began Sim Squires, "thet's done been seekin' evi_dence_ erginst ther riders, an' he's done secured a lavish of hit, too." So far, his words were running in expected grooves, and as the voice went on a little indistinct because of the pebble under the tongue, his impatient audience accorded him only a perfunctory attention. "He's done hed spies amongst ye an' he's got evi_dence_ thet no co'te kain't fail ter convict on," proceeded the witness, slowly. "He aims ter penitenshery _you_," his finger rose and settled, pointing toward the man who had acted as spokesman, and who was Rick Joyce. Then it rose again and fell on others, as Sim added, "an' _you_--an' _you_!" "We don't aim ter give him no chanst," interrupted Joyce, and it was then that Sim Squires branched into unanticipated ways. Suddenly this amazing witness ripped off his mask and threw aside his hat. Then he spat out the pebble that interfered with his enunciation and annoyed him, and like the epilepsy victim who slides abruptly from sane normality into his madness, the man became transformed. The timidities that had fettered him and held him a slave to cowardice were swept away like unconsidered drift on the tide of a passion that was willing to court death, if vengeance could come first. He had definitely crossed the line of allegiance and meant to swing the fatal fury of that mob from one victim to another, or die in his effort to that end. His eyes were the ember pupils of the madman or the martyr, his face was the frenzied face of a man to whom ordinary considerations no longer count; whose idea as fixed and single, and to whom personal consequences have become unimportant. His body was rigid yet vibrant, and his voice rang through the room as his finger rose and pointed into the face of Bas Rowlett. "Thet man," he shouted, "hes bore ther semblance of yore friend, but he aims ter _dee_stroy ye.... I knows because I've done been his slave an' he's told me so ... he aims ter hev ye murder Parish Thornton fer him fust ... an' then ter penitenshery ye fer doin' his dirty work. Ye hain't nothin' on God's green y'arth but only his dupes!" Squires paused for breath, and instead of the clamour and outcry for which he had braced himself he encountered a hushed stillness through which he could hear the hammering of his own heart. Rowlett had started to bellow out an enraged denial, but he had swiftly reconsidered and chosen instead to treat the accusation with a quieter and more telling contempt. Now he laughed derisively as he turned toward Joyce. "I reckon," he suggested, "I don't even need ter gainsay no sich damn lie es thet, does I?" But of late there had been so much traitorousness that no man knew whom he could trust. Now to Rowlett's astonished discomfiture he recognized the stern and ominous note of doubt in Joyce's response. "Ef I was you, I wouldn't only gainsay hit, but I'd strive master hard ter _prove_ my denial."