"Yes; and we ought to have taken Newcome and strung him right up. That's the way to serve 'em when they get so bold—shooting a man down in cold blood."
"It would have been done, too, if it hadn't been for his daughter. Everybody pitied her—she's such a helpless young thing."
"Her father didn't pity the girl the Doctor was engaged to. The postmaster says there's a letter come to-day from her; and how do you think she will feel when she gets the news that he is dead—murdered?"
"If she'd a-been right afore his eyes though, the way Newcome's girl was afore ours, it might have made a difference. When a man is desperate enough to shoot another man, he don't stop to consider friends at a distance, or how they'll feel about it."
"They say Newcome's girl is right sick; as crazy as a loon all night, and a-begging of her father to forgive her for appearin' agin him. He ought to be hung for bein' so hateful to her."
"I wonder what'll become of the girl if her father is hung? She hasn't got any relations in this country, I heard; and she's so young—not more'n fifteen, I reckon—and disgraced at that."
"Her face is her fortune," put in some one, curtly.
"Yes, and a poor enough fortune it proves, sometimes, to have a handsome face and nobody to take care of it."
"That's a fact. I heard old Mauvais going on about her beauty at a great rate just the day before the murder, and I reckon it's no good luck to have him a-foolin' around. He couldn't marry her if she'd have him, for his jealous Indian wives would tomahawk him, straight; besides, 'tain't likely he'd want to marry a murderer's daughter."
"She's in good hands now. Wyman's wife will see that she is taken care of; and Wyman, too, if he wasn't poor, would be glad enough to keep the girl, for he's mightily interested in her. He's got a soft heart for a constable, Wyman has."
"He isn't so poor, either, but he has bread enough for one more mouth," said the constable himself, appearing in their midst. "Nobody knows, gentlemen, what may happen in the futur', or whether the girl will lose her father or not; but if she does, an' she will take such fare as we can give her, she's just as welcome as a child of my own; an' that's what my woman says; and so, if you please, you needn't be a prophesyin' evil about her, nor her pretty face neither."
"Hurrah for Wyman!" said two or three, at once.
But the constable had not come to be hurrahed, nor to make a figure of himself; he had just dropped in to see what was going on, and was about making his way out again as quietly as he had entered, when the middle-aged stranger before mentioned touched his arm.
"Allow me to pass into the street with you; I wish to ask you
