“We'll see. For the present, your friend Crust is safe. As long as he lives within the law, he is all right. We're going to have law and order here, Mr. Landover. I want you to understand that. The best evidence that most of us want law and order is the incredible manner in which these people have curbed their natural instincts.”
“No one wants law and order more than I,” said Landover.
“And I suppose Manuel Crust is of the same mind, eh?”
“So far as I know, he is,” replied the other firmly.
Percival looked at him in blank astonishment. “Well, I'm damned!” he said, after a moment. “Do you really believe that?”
“It does not follow that he is an advocate of lawlessness and disorder because he happens to be opposed to some of your pet schemes, does it, Mr. Percival?” inquired Landover ironically.
“One of my pet schemes happens to conflict seriously with Manuel's pet scheme, if that will strengthen your argument any, Mr. Landover.”
“I don't believe Crust ever had any such thought,” said the other flatly.
“We're not getting anywhere by arguing the point,” said Percival. He turned to walk away.
“Just a moment,” called out Landover, after the younger man had taken a few steps. “See here, Percival, I don't want you to misunderstand me. If there is anything in this talk about Crust,--you know what I mean,--and if it should come to the point where stern measures are required, I will be with you, heart and soul. You know that, don't you?”
Percival studied the banker's face for a moment. “I've never doubted it for an instant, Landover. We may yet shake hands and be friends in spite of ourselves.”
Landover turned on his heel and walked away, and Percival, with a shrug of his shoulders, set about making preparations to safe-guard Sancho Mendez when he was brought in from the wood. He posted a number of reliable, cool-headed men around the “meetinghouse,” many of them being armed. Arrangements were made for barricading the door and the few windows. The prisoner was to be confined in the building, a long, low structure, and there he was to tell his story and stand trial. There was to be no delay in the matter of a trial.
“You will sit as judge, Mike,” said the “boss,” addressing Malone. “There will not be any legal technicalities, old man, and there won't be any appeal,--so all you've got to do is to act like a judge and not like a lawyer. We've got to do this thing in the regular way. Try to forget that you have practiced in the New York City courts. Remember that there is such a thing as justice and pay absolutely no attention to what you are in the habit of calling the law. The law is a beautiful thing if you don't take it too seriously. Ninety-nine out of every hundred judges in the courts of the U. S. A. sit through a trial worrying their heads off trying to remember the law so that they can keep out of the record things that might make them look like jackasses when the case is carried up to a higher court,--and while they are thinking so hard about the law they forget all about the poor little trifle called justice. I guess you know that as well as I do, so there's no use talking about it.”