Thus he would justify his conscience
and legal duties. But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale
was of an element that had entered into conditions. It had never
occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor's arrival. To Pine
Cone a "furriner" aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since
Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community
that could not possibly have anything in common with him? So it was
that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing
sight of him at once, concluded that he was Burke, back and in hiding;
and a growing but stealthy excitement was in the air. He was supposed by
both factions to be with the sheriff, and feeling ran high. In the final
estimate, could White have known it, he himself held no small part!
Beloved and hated, Lawson divided the community for and against himself
about equally. There were those who defended and swore they would kill
any who harmed the young outlaw--he was of the jovial, dare-devil type
and as loyal to his friends as he was unyielding to his foes. Others
declared that the desperado must be "finished"; the trap disagreement
was but the last of a long list of crimes; it was time to put a quietus
on one who refused to fall into line--who called the sheriff his friend
and had been known to hobnob with revenue men! That, perhaps, was the
blackest deed to be attributed to any native.
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