McPhail pushed Barney out, shut the door behind him, and stood
on the steps, looking at the crowd.
"Well, you're a great lot! You fellers, would ye jump on a sick
man? What ye think ye're all doin', anyhow?"
The crowd laughed. "Hey, Mac; give us a speech!"
"You ought to be booted, the whole lot o' yeh!" he replied.
"That houn' in there's run the bank into the ground, with every cent
o' money we'd put in," said Barney. "I s'pose ye know that."
"Well, s'pose he has-what's the use o' jumpin' on
"Git it out of his hide."
"I've heerd that talk before. How much you got in?"
"Two hundred dollars."
"Well, I've got two thousand." The crowd saw the point.
"I guess if anybody was goin' t' take it out of his hide, I'd be the
man; but I want the feller to live and have a chance to pay it back.
Killin' 'im is a dead loss."
"That's so!" shouted somebody. "Mac ain't no fool, if he does chaw
hay," said another, and the crowd laughed. They were losing that
frenzy, largely imitative and involuntary, which actuates a mob.
There was something counteracting in the ex-sheriff's cool,
humorous tone.
"Give us the rest of it, Mac!"
"The rest of it is clear out o' here, 'r I'll boot every mother's son of
yeh!"
"Can't do it!"
"Come down an' try it!"
McIlvaine opened the door and looked out.
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