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It ran as follows: "We have unwittingly cast suspicion on an innocent man, and for once an unprincipled informant has fooled us. The cattle-thief prosecutor has appeared, and will shortly present himself blushing before the public gaze.
"What did the letter say?" "It demanded a great sum of money, with my life as the penalty for refusal. It was signed by Cardi; there was no mistaking the name. If it had been from Narcone, for instance, I would have paid no attention to it, for he is no more than a cattle-thief. But Belisario Cardi! My boy, you don't appreciate the significance of that name.
Again his thoughts went to the tales of the gossips of the settlement, and the strange figure of the daring cattle-thief loomed up over his mental horizon. He rode, and as he rode he wondered. The end Of this journey would be a fitting place for the explanations which must take place between them. At length the shaking path came to an end and the mire was crossed.
We are in a very bad way, and we are trying to make that way a little better until civilization can reach us. At present we lie beyond its pale. The courts, or rather the juries, into whose hands we have put the law, are not dealing the law. They are withered hands, or rather they are imitation hands made for show, with no life in them, no grip. They cannot hold a cattle-thief.
A cattle-thief who feared neither man nor devil; a man who for twelve months and more had carried, his life in his hands, the sworn enemy of law and order, but who, in his worst moments, had never been known to injure a poor man or a woman.
If he'd seen me he'd sure have killed me. Say, sis, your Will's a cattle-thief. You've heerd tell of 'em, ain't you? Do you know what they do to cattle-thieves? I'll tell you. They hang 'em. They hang 'em slow. They haul 'em up, an' their necks stretch, an' an' then they die. Then the coyotes come round an' jump up an' try to eat 'em. An' they hang there till they stink.
"Keep all that till I've finished," Will said coolly. "Maybe you won't be so ready then. Well, I used his brand, and set a bunch of cattle running amongst his McLagan's cattle, as you know. Then I waited for developments. They came oh, yes, they came. Jim was the cattle-thief. I the lucky gold prospector. Good, eh?" He laughed heartily.
"Oh, they're wicked, cruel monsters! They hate him, and they only want to hang him because they hate him. It's it's nothing to do with the cattle stealing. Smallbones has always hated Jim, because because Jim's better educated and comes from good people. Jim a cattle-thief? Jim wouldn't steal a a blade of grass. He's too noble, and good, and and honest. Oh, I hate these people!
The force of Jane's argument almost carried conviction. But the blacksmith's wife liked Jim, and could not let Jane carry off honors so easily. "Jim ain't no cattle-thief," she said. "And," she hurried on, with truly feminine logic, "if he was he'd be cleverer than that. Mark me, Jim's too dead honest. Now, if it was Will Henderson "
But she must do it, that his children might evade the stigma of "cattle-thief," that the shadow of the gallows-tree might not fall across their young lives, that the neighbors might give credence to the tale of Jim’s escape from his enemies, that Alida and she might earn the pittance that would give the children the "clean start" that Jim had set his heart on so confidently.
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