Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/194

 This friend hurried to a saloon where the town worthies congregated and there rehashed the story with garnishment of his own. He quoted Strayman as saying: "Dam'd strange somebody got this lawyer on the ground so quickly." The accent was on the somebody.

Thence the ripple spread.

Original Bill had kept off Main Street all morning, for he sensed the temper of the town and he was not one rashly to tempt trouble. But his time had not been idle. In that sacrosanct upper room of the Capitol Saloon were several men of weight in the clan, and council was imperative. Original was with them. Also Timberline Todd and Andy Dorson. Original, catching an echo of the explosion Woolly Annie had touched off, had found the precious twain asleep in a livery stable and hustled them through back alleys to the Capitol's rear entrance and so to this innermost citadel of the cowmen. Neither needed injunction to stay put until nightfall.

To the men gathered about the green baize table Original recited everything of his interview with Von Tromp, coloring details not at all and recounting the lawyer's anxiety concerning the Killer as well as he could. It was