They realised that Fergus and
Holden had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. Their primitive sense of
justice exonerated the humourists and arraigned the one malicious man. As
the night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out by La
Touche to the man who had not "acted on the square."
Gow Johnson saw, too late, that he had roused a spirit as hard to appease
as the demon roused in O'Ryan earlier in the evening. He would have
enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but he
knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant at the
half-savage penalty they meant to exact. He had determined that O'Ryan
should marry her; and this might be an obstruction in the path. It was
true that O'Ryan now would be a rich man--one of the richest in the West,
unless all signs failed; but meanwhile a union of fortunes would only be
an added benefit. Besides, he had seen that O'Ryan was in earnest, and
what O'Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. He was not
concerned greatly for O'Ryan's absence. He guessed that Terry had ridden
away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on him, to have
it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher.
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