Chapter XXXIV - Page 2

heard that racket and looked up that hill it was just like the
whole world was a-ripping and a-tearing down that mountain side--
splinters, and cord-wood, thunder and lightning, hail and snow, odds and
ends of hay stacks, and awful clouds of dust!--trees going end over end
in the air, rocks as big as a house jumping 'bout a thousand feet high
and busting into ten million pieces, cattle turned inside out and
a-coming head on with their tails hanging out between their teeth!--and
in the midst of all that wrack and destruction sot that cussed Morgan on
his gate-post, a-wondering why I didn't stay and hold possession! Laws
bless me, I just took one glimpse, General, and lit out'n the county in
three jumps exactly.

"But what grinds me is that that Morgan hangs on there and won't move
off'n that ranch--says it's his'n and he's going to keep it--likes it
better'n he did when it was higher up the hill. Mad! Well, I've been so
mad for two days I couldn't find my way to town--been wandering around in
the brush in a starving condition--got anything here to drink, General?
But I'm here now, and I'm a-going to law. You hear me!"

Never in all the world, perhaps, were a man's feelings so outraged as
were the General's. He said he had never heard of such high-handed
conduct in all his life as this Morgan's. And he said there was no use
in going to law--Morgan had no shadow of right to remain where he was--
nobody in the wide world would uphold him in it, and no lawyer would take
his case and no judge listen to it. Hyde said that right there was where
he was mistaken--everybody in town sustained Morgan; Hal Brayton, a very
smart lawyer, had taken his case; the courts being in vacation, it was to
be tried before a referee, and ex-Governor Roop had already been
appointed to that office and would open his court in a large public hall
near the hotel at two that afternoon.

The General was amazed. He said he had suspected before that the people
of that Territory were fools, and now he knew it. But he said rest easy,
rest easy and collect the witnesses, for the victory was just as certain
as if the conflict were already over. Hyde wiped away his tears and
left.

At two in the afternoon referee Roop's Court opened and Roop appeared
throned among his sheriffs, the witnesses, and spectators, and wearing
upon his face a solemnity so awe-inspiring that some of his fellow-
conspirators had misgivings that maybe he had not comprehended, after
all, that this was merely a joke. An unearthly stillness prevailed, for
at the slightest noise the judge uttered sternly the command:

"Order in the Court!"

And the sheriffs promptly echoed it. Presently the General elbowed his
way through the crowd of spectators, with his arms full of law-books, and
on