If I disavow your act, as I might, I leave you as helpless as any tramp that was ever kicked from a doorstep,--as any burglar that was ever collared on the fence by a constable." It was the truth.

There was no denying the authority of the document, the facts of the situation, or its ultimate power and significance.
There was consternation, stupefaction, and even a half-humorous recognition of the absurdity of their position on most of the faces around him.

Incongruous as the scene was, it was made still more grotesque by the attitude of Jim Hooker.

Ruthlessly abandoning the party of convicted trespassers, he stalked gloomily over to the side of Clarence, with the air of having been all the time scornfully in the secret and a mien of wearied victoriousness, and thus halting, he disdainfully expectorated tobacco juice on the ground between him and his late companions, as if to form a line of demarcation.

The few Mexicans began to edge towards the gateway.