The world expanded again, with sunshine, hope and ambition warming it, making it a desirable place.
The coroner arrived in due time, bringing with him a jury of sheepmen, being an expedient man and determined to have the case investigated and disposed of on the ground. The inquest was held over the slain man where he lay on the ground with the half-burned match beside his fingers. The whole proceeding did not occupy more than ten minutes, the jury not only finding Rawlins justified, but commending him warmly for his defence of his rights, which was, they said, in no small measure the defence of the public rights, to a long defied in the Dry Wood country.
The inquest over, these sheepmen cast their calculative eyes around the country, knowing themselves safe in their official position, taking advantage of the event to do a little locating against some future day. They spoke admiringly of Rawlins' fine location for sheep, looked at his hay, pulled handfuls of it out of the stacks and smelt it, their faces almost beatific in the satisfaction of its sweet scent.
Edith hung back out of the proceedings until they had lifted the body into the wagon and covered it with a sheep-herder's tent. Then she came over to shake hands with Rawlins, as the rest of the sheepmen had done, and do the best she could to make it appear that killing a man under the proper circumstances was nothing to worry over or remember with remorse.
The sheepmen all knew Edith, for fifty or sixty miles was a small matter between neighbors in Dry Wood in those times. It is just about the same even to-day. They talked about the drought, and kicked the ground
