JESSIE [a good-natured but sharp-tongued, hoity-toity young woman; Babsy's rival in good looks and her superior in tidiness] They shoot for the love of it. Look at them at a lynching. Theyre not content to hang the man; but directly the poor creature is swung up they all shoot him full of holes, wasting their cartridges that cost solid money, and pretending they do it in horror of his wickedness, though half of them would have a rope round their own necks if all they did was known--let alone the mess it makes. LOTTIE. I wish we could get more civilized. I don't like all this lynching and shooting. I don't believe any of us like it, if the truth were known. BABSY. Our Sheriff is a real strong man. You want a strong man for a rough lot like our people here. He aint afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Lucky for us quiet ones, too. JESSIE. Oh, don't talk to me. I know what men are. Of course he aint afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Wheres the risk in that with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil thats in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that aint afraid not to shoot and not to hang. EMMA [a sneak who sides with Babsy or Jessie, according to the fortune of war] Well, I must say it does sicken me to see Sheriff Kemp putting down his foot, as he calls it. Why don't he put it down on his wife? She wants it worse than half the men he lynches. He and his Vigilance Committee, indeed! BABSY [incensed] Oh, well! if people are going to take the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff--! JESSIE. Who's taking the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff? BABSY. You are. Waitle your own horse is stolen, and youll know better. I had an uncle that died of thirst in the sage brush because a negro stole his horse. But they caught him and burned him; and serve him right, too. EMMA. I have known that a child was born crooked because its mother had to do a horse's work that was stolen. BABSY. There! You hear that? I say stealing a horse is ten times worse than killing a man. And if the Vigilance Committee ever gets hold of you, youd better have killed twenty men than as much as stole a saddle or bridle, much less a horse. [Elder Daniels comes in.] ELDER DANIELS. Sorry to disturb you, ladies; but the Vigilance Committee has taken a prisoner; and they want the room to try him in. JESSIE. But they cant try him til Sheriff Kemp comes back from the wharf. ELDER DANIELS. Yes; but we have to keep the prisoner here til he comes. BABSY. What do you want to put him here for? Cant you tie him up in the Sheriff's stable? ELDER DANIELS. He has a soul to be saved, almost like the rest of us. I am bound to try to put some religion into him before he goes into his Maker's presence after the trial.