"They've got him," he said in a choked tone, and waved a hand toward the west.
"Who's got him ?" Dade clanked a step closer and peered sharply into Bill's face, with all the easy good humor wiped out of his own.
"The Committee.

You're too late; they're taking him out to the oak.
Been gone about ten minutes.

They had it in for him, and--I couldn't do a thing! The men in this town--" Epithets rushed incoherently from Bill's lips, just as violent weeping marks the reaction from a woman's first silence in the face of tragedy.
Dade did not hear a word he was saying, after those first jerky sentences.

He stood looking past Bill at a drunken Irishman who was making erratic progress up the street; and he was no more conscious of the Irishman than he was of Bill's scorching condemnation of the town which could permit such outrages.
"Watch Surry a minute!" he said abruptly, and hurried into the gambling hall.

In a minute he was back again and lifting foot to the stirrup.
"How long did you say they've been gone ?" he asked, without looking at Bill.
"Ten or fifteen minutes.