"By Heaven!" exclaimed Hare. "The Mormons have risen against the
rustlers. I understand now. John Caldwell spent last night in secretly
rousing his neighbors. They have surprised the rustlers. Now what?"
Hare vaulted the fence and ran down the road. A compact mob of men, a
hundred or more, had halted in the village under the wide-spreading
cottonwoods. Hare suddenly grasped the terrible significance of those
outstretched branches, and out of the thought grew another which made him
run at bursting break-neck speed.
"Open up! Let me in!" he yelled to the thickly thronged circle. Right
and left he flung men. "Make way!" His piercing voice stilled the angry
murmur. Fierce men with weapons held aloft fell back from his face.
"Dene's spy!" they cried.
The circle opened and closed upon him. He saw bound rustlers under armed
guard. Four still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay
outstretched, a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flinty-faced
Mormons, ruthless now as they had once been mild, surrounded the
rustlers. John Caldwell stood foremost, with ashen lips breaking
bitterly into speech:
"Mormons, this is Dene's spy, the man who killed Holderness!"
The listeners burst into the short stern shout of men proclaiming a
leader in war.
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