"Boys," I called, "Old Brown sort of values this place. It's all the home he's got, and it ain't insured."
The little flame lep' up and caught the brushwood, the crackling lifted to a roar, and the robbers must surely know that their time was come, for if they showed at the door they would be shot. I grabbed my gun from the ground and ran to the doorway to stop our boys from firing. Then I shouted above the noise of the flames, "Come out and throw up your hands!"
They came, poor fellows, and I made them prisoners, marching them down to the ferry.
At Hundred Mile House the long table had been removed from the dining hall, the benches set back to the log walls, and at the head of the room an enormous Union Jack draped a very small portrait of Queen Victoria. Beneath was the chair, in front of it a table set with writing materials and the Bible, while at one end the schoolma'am looked very self-conscious as clerk, in official black, with large red bows like signals of distress.
On the right sat Iron Dale, Jesse, and myself, and all our posse, very ill at ease. On the left were two gaunt American stockmen, both wearing hats, while one had the star of a United States marshal. Beside them sat the general public, consisting of Tearful George, two ranch-hands, an Indian, and the captain's bulldog. Wee James, the captain's grandson, sat with the dog at first, but presently he interrupted the court to say that he would like to sit on me. He sat with considerable weight for so small a person.
At Captain Taylor's entrance the constable ordered us all to stand. Every inch a naval officer, bluff, ruddy, cheery, choleric, frightfully impressive in a frock coat, he wore a Russian order slung by a ribbon at his throat, and a little row of miniature war medals, the ribbons, alas, too small to show me of which campaigns. At sight of the two strangers he mounted a single eye-glass, and stared with growing wrath until they removed their hats. Then, taking the chair, he permitted us to be seated and ordered his constable to "Bring the prisoners aft."
Had our captives been washed and brushed, they might not have looked so wretched or so guilty. Old O'Flynn, described by Jesse as Whiskers, with his head in a blood-stained bandage, his right hand in a gory handkerchief, looked so ill that he was given a seat. The Mexican, whose beautiful leather dress, and soft dark eyes reminded me sharply of the opera-house, seemed like a trapped wolf, only thinking of escape to the nearest woods. Bull Durham's swaggering gallantry was marred by obvious traces of the flour sack wherein he had been immersed by his disgusted chief, and the shower of rain which followed.