"We're the doctors in this man's case," the liveryman announced. "You done fine, sisters, you done fine!" He spread his arms to clear the crowd back, and stooped to look into Dunham's hazy eyes. "You done fine!" he repeated. "We'll take charge of this funeral now."
Zora started up with horrible apprehension. She looked around for help where there was no help, and back again in mute appeal to the agent's wife, who still knelt beside Dunham, her arm under his head.
"You'll have to step out of this now, ladies," the liveryman said.
"You'll not lay a hand on him!" Zora defied him. She looked at Dunham's belt, thinking of his gun, but it was not there. "You'll not lay a hand on him!" she stormed again, but knowing in her hopeless heart that she was powerless to stop them.
The liveryman jerked his head in signal to somebody behind Zora. They laid hold of her roughly and pulled her away, her struggles and tearful pleading unheeded.
Mrs. Hoy put Dunham's head down gently, and stood beside him, alarmed by this sudden turn against a man whom she believed to be beyond the vengeance of his most craven enemy.
"Why," she said, looking around in dismay, "why—why, gentlemen, you surely wouldn't lay hands on a dying man?"
"We'll be careful of him, ma'am," the liveryman said. "You just run along and tend to your biscuits before they burn."
They pushed her away, gently enough for men with
