"You get up very sudden storms in your quiet town, Miss Delarue," he said. "An hour ago Las Plumas was as sleepy and decorous--and dead--as the graveyard on the hill over yonder. But a man rides up and says ten words and, br-r-r, the whole population is agog and ready to spring at one another's throats." "Yes," she assented, "when I went up town a little while ago everything was as quiet as usual. What is the excitement all about?" "Why, they are saying that Emerson Mead has killed Will Whittaker!" "What!" Her face suddenly went white, and she stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. "It may not be true." "Oh, I don't believe it can be true!" He swept her face with a sudden, curious glance. "Nobody seems to know, certainly, that Will is dead. He and Mead had a quarrel a week ago and Mead threatened to kill him. Will left the ranch that day to come to town, and he hasn't been seen since. Of course, he may have changed his mind and gone off to some other part of the range." "Of course," she assented eagerly. "At this time of year he is very likely to have been needed somewhere else on the range. I don't believe he has--he is dead." "There is much feeling about it on the street. And it seems to be quite as much a matter of politics as a personal quarrel." "Oh, everything is politics here, Mr. Wellesly!" said the girl. "If the people all over the United States take as much interest in politics as they do here, I don't see how they have found time to build railroads and cities." Wellesly laughed. "They don't take it the same way, Miss Delarue. Las Plumas politics is a thing apart and of its own kind. Except in party names, it has no connection with the politics of the states. Here it is merely a case of 'follow your leader,' of personal loyalty to some man who has run, or who expects to run, for office. Being so personal, of course, it is more virulent." "Do you think there is likely to be any violence this time?" she asked, with a tremor of anxiety in her voice. "There is violent talk already. I heard more than one man say that Mead ought to be lynched"--he was watching her face as he talked--"and his two friends, Ellhorn and Tuttle, along with him. There is a great deal of feeling against Mead, and the general idea seems to be that he is an inveterate cattle thief, and that the country would be better off without him."