It broke the heart of Dade Hunter to see how near the sinister
procession was to the live oak that had come to be looked upon as the
gallows of the Vigilance Committee; a gallows whose broad branches
sheltered from rain and sun alike the unmarked graves of the men
who had come there shuddering and looked upon it, and shuddering had
looked no more upon anything in this world.
Until he was near enough to risk betraying his haste by the hoof-beats
of his horse, Dade kept Surry at a run. Upon the crest of the slope
which the procession was leisurely descending, he slowed to a lope;
and so overtook the crowd that straggled always out to the hangings,
came they ever so frequent. Reeling in the saddle, he came up with
the stragglers, singing and marking time with a half-empty bottle of
whisky.
The few who knew him looked at one another askance.
"Say, Hunter, ain't yuh got any feelin's? That there's your pardner on
the hoss," one loose-jointed miner expostulated.
"Sure, I got feelin's! Have a d-drink?" Dade leered drunkenly at the
speaker. "Jack's--no good anyway. Tol' 'im he'd get hung if he--have a
d-drink?"
The loose-jointed one would, and so would his neighbors. The Captain
glanced back at them, gave a contemptuous lift to his upper lip and
faced again to the front.
Dade uncoiled his riata with aimless, fumbling fingers and swung the
noose facetiously toward the bottle, uptilted over the eager mouth of
a weazened little Irishman.
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