"This gun says there will be no lynching here." "There's earth enough to bury every man who comes to me with a rope." "Here you are, Mr. Paladin." "As you designed it, in almost solid platinum." "That's very nice." "I know how difficult platinum is to work with." "It requires great heat." "Yes, sir." "The combination of rare metal and great skill makes that quite an expensive ornament." "Naturally." "Leave your bill at the desk." "Leave the...?" "Thank you, Mr. Paladin." "Leave the bill?" "At the desk." "Good day, sir." "Uh, Mr. Paladin- he's, uh, wealthy?" "Here." "Always I bring Mr. Paladin newspaper from every place." "Him big tipper." "Oh." "Uh, I-I'm to leave a bill for Mr. Paladin." "Is that all right?" "Quite all right, sir." "This is his permanent residence." "His, uh, credit?" "You must be new to San Francisco." "No one questions Mr. Paladin's credit." "Uh, he's engaged in business here?" "He must have investments all over the west." "He's always going away on business trips." "Oh." ""Bartholomew Holgate wanted for murder" ""by the town of Bender in Wyoming Territory" ""was captured in the foothills" ""south of Sacramento this morning." ""Holgate pleaded with the local authorities" ""against being returned to Bender." ""The prisoner stated that he would be turned over to a mob which would lynch him."" "Everything taken care of, Mr. Paladin." "It's a pleasure to do business with a gentleman of taste." ""Bartholomew Holgate..." ""Care of Jail," "Sacramento, California."" "Get out of my way!" "You seem to have gotten tangled up in an iron clothesline." "Stay put, or I'll blow you in half." "I ought to pull the trigger and finish it right here." "Thanks, Mister." "Give me them irons." "You can't blame me." "He was taking me back to be lynched." "Well, you don't deserve better." "I step out for a minute, and Harry here tries to make you more comfortable." "You kick him in the head and take off." "I'll not be making mistakes of kindness again." "You, I take it, are Bartholomew Holgate." "You received my card, I received your wire." "You?" "I thought you was on my side." "Who are you, Mister?" "My name is Paladin." "Your name, Sheriff, is..." "Swink." "And this young fella, who's liable to blow a hole in you, is my deputy, Harry Dill." "What's your business here?" "That remains to be settled." "What makes you think you'll be lynched?" "The town was named after Max Bender." "The Benders are well-liked." "It was his son that caught my bullet." "I'll tell you what I'll do." "For $200, I'll guarantee to deliver you alive to stand trial." "All right, Paladin." "I'll see you get your money the moment I step in the courtroom." "And what do you think the chances are of my employer here being lynched?" "I think they'll try it." "Will you stop them?" "Don't ask him." "I didn't hear your answer, Sheriff." "It'd be a cruel, hard decision." "Then we are on the same side." "With the whole town on the other side," "I don't figure we'll come out on top." "As the poet Browning wrote," ""'Tis not what man does that exalts him but what man would do."" "And we three, would do right." "Well, maybe that poet don't mind failing, but me, when I put my hand to a thing," "I like to know it's going to be done." ""A man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?"" "That's Browning again." "Max, Amy." "How'd you know we'd come in on this train?" "We waited on all the trains." "I wanted to see the man that killed my son." "He's going to get a trial, Max." "My brother didn't have a trial." "Amy..." "He didn't have a gun and he didn't have a trial with a smart lawyer to trick him to freedom or a prison sentence." "The man that killed your brother will have a trial, Miss Bender." "Who are you?" "My name is Paladin." "Holgate hired him to see that he ain't lynched." "So the gunfighters are all for law and order if the price is right." "You don't buy law and order, Miss Bender." "You fight for it." "Once you have it, you don't throw it away." "Your father knows how hard law is to come by." "All this talk won't change the writing on my brother's tombstone." "Your neighbors will come for this man," "Sheriff..." "and you'll do what's right." "He will." "And so will you." "Go tell your Ma you're home, Harry." "I'll be back if trouble breaks." "In there." "Good work, Swink." "Now that you've got the honey in the hive, the bees will be swarming around soon enough." "Sheriff I'll bed down in one of your office cots until the trial." "All right, but I'll be using the other one." "Greetings, gentlemen." "You didn't lose any time, did you Coombs?" "My client and I must start preparing our defense." "And mind you, Sheriff," "I expect you to deliver us only to the court." "Exactly." "Who's he?" "Oh, let's say I'm a deputy to assist the Sheriff." "He's all right." "I hired his gun." "He'll see to it I get to the courtroom." "And you see that your attorney turns the fee over to the person I choose." "I'll tell him." "Right now, we'd like privacy." "My client and I must discuss the case." "Go ahead." "Rap on the bars when you're through." "Well, sir..." "I have been examining our case." "Talking to the witnesses." "Searching for legal precedents." "Can you get me off?" "No." "However, we might make a case out of the fact that you assumed young Bender to be armed." "What does that get me?" "Ten to 20 years." "Perhaps life." "That won't hardly do, see." "I see." "Now, Bart, we can merely present our defense." "We cannot command a verdict." "Can we buy one?" "No, no." "Not in the present situation." "Then I'd better not stay around for the trial." "Well, you're safer in this cell than you would be outside." "If you fell into the hands of those townspeople..." "The town can help me out of this mess." "Yeah." "Let them coming roaring up to the front of the jail in a mob, yelling for my neck." "They'll do that right enough." "And Swink, that kid, and Paladin will be out there trying to hold them off." "There'll be gunplay and noise aplenty." "There'll be that, too." "Let's see." "I still got a couple of friends." "William and Keith." "They still around?" "Yes." "They signed on at the Circle X Ranch." "Well, uh... have them ride into town." "That's Amy Bender's doing." "She'll keep stirring the pot till it boils over." "She was always such a nice, quiet girl." "I never suspected that there was a streak of pure meanness under it all." "Meanness, Mr. Coombs?" "Hardly." "Amy Bender hates, and with good cause." "It's frustrating for a woman to hate like this." "She can't strap on a gun and settle this affair with her own two hands." "Well?" "Miss Bender, I wonder if you'd hold some money for me." "You're not to give it to me until Holgate steps into the courtroom." "If he dies before that, return it to Mr. Coombs." "You think I'd hold your blood money?" "Blood money, for keeping a man alive?" "I'll hold that money for you." "Thank you, Mr. Bender." "Well, uh, you don't need me anymore." "If you won't help us, at least stay out of it completely." "Who needs weapons?" "Lend me a shotgun, Amy." "A double blast to the belly ought to cut a man in half." "That man wouldn't be any deader than one with a.45 slug between his eyes." "Yeah, you're a big man with a gun, ain't ya?" "And you're a big man with a crowd." "I don't need no crowd." "I don't need no gun." "Stay away from the jail." "Don't try to stop us, gunfighter." "There's room for another noose out there." "So there is." "And earth enough to bury every man who comes to me with a rope." "How's it been?" "Quiet in here." "Ain't it building up on the street?" "Small groups, big talk." "Nothing'll happen tonight." "They'll wait till word reaches the ranchers in Onestas." "I make it the party'll break tomorrow night." "Feels like it." "Get a good night's sleep, boys." "Don't want you dozing tomorrow night." "Holgate seems to be in a happier frame of mind tonight." "He's got no worries." "We're supposed to look after him in jail, and Coombs'll look after him in court." "Sheriff, I've got an idea Holgate can look after himself." "Is there anyplace around here I can lock this up?" "I wouldn't want it handled too much." "Well, uh, this has got a key." "You can put it in there." "Thank you." "What you got in that bag, anyhow?" "Just some of the tools of my trade." "Some of the..." "Uh-oh." "Lookie here." "What have we got now?" "So?" "Well, there's McHeath and his friends." "That's Fred Coombs's place." "Now what would he be wanting with Holgate's lawyer?" "Sheriff, if you want to sit up tonight pondering the answers to questions," "I've got a better one for you to chew on." "What's that?" "Who do they figure to ride that extra horse?" "A man came by and said you wanted to see me." "Now that you've had a night to sleep on it, do you still intend to fight for Holgate?" "Nothing's come up to change my position, Miss Bender." "Something might." "For instance?" "Mr. Paladin..." "I don't want anyone hurt." "I just want Holgate to pay for my brother's death." "So far, no argument." "I believe Sheriff Swink can be persuaded not to shoot at his friends." "In that case, no harm will come to him." "The same goes for his deputy." "That's a lot of believing, Miss Bender, but go ahead." "That leaves just you." "You're liable to kill somebody and be killed in turn." "It would seem so." "You're doing this for money." "What if I gave you more money to leave town now?" "That's a definite offer, I take it?" "Cash." "I'll get it for you." "Don't do that." "Switching sides for money?" "That's most unethical." "I'm afraid not." "But why?" "Have you ever seen a lynching, Miss Bender?" "No." "I imagine it..." "Your imagination would fall far short of the truth." "No matter what Holgate's done, he won't be handed over to feed the animal instincts of a mob." "What's the matter - is your conscience acting up?" "I don't want anyone hurt except Holgate." "That's the trouble with a lynching, Miss Bender." "You can't have it ordered up all neat and dainty like a yard of Flemish lace." "It's something that cowards get whiskeyed up and mumble over, winding up with screams in the gutters of a dark night." "There's nothing you can do to stop it!" "It's all set, Amy." "We'll start tonight from here." "What's the matter?" "Nothing's the matter." "We'll start from here..." "tonight." "What are you looking at me like that for?" "What are you thinking?" "I'm just wondering what you're thinking." "Mob's about ready to move." "Paladin!" "Coming." "Well, sir, see you in court." "They're moving up this way." "Looks like everybody's here." "I'd say we're all set." "You wait here, Amy." "We'll bring him to you." "You can put the rope around his neck." "You change your mind, Max?" "Yes." "What are you going to do, Dad?" "I'm going to the jail... and when this mob comes, Amy," "I'm going to use this rifle." "Hold on there, Max." "You're a little turned around, ain't you?" "You know, when I first came here, there was nothing." "That was good." "I wanted to start my family out in a place where there were no guns and no vigilante law." "Then you people came." "The town started to grow..." "but it was still good... because right from the very start, we had the law and we had decency." "And now you." "You want to wipe all of this out in just one night." "We're doing this for your son." "Don't you use my boy as an excuse." "Why, you..." "Give me that gun." "You better stay here and take it easy, Max." "It's all right." "The sheriff will give me another rifle." "Dad, don't!" "Come on, men, let's move." "Oh, Amy..." "Amy, what have you done?" "!" "I'm sorry." "Wait!" "I'm sorry." "I didn't know it would be like this." "There's another shotgun in the rack." "No, thanks, Sheriff." "We might as well stand 'em off from in here." "Harry, you take 'em from this window here." "Oh, listen to 'em." "Bart!" "Bart..." "Bart!" "Hand me the rope." "Tie it round the saddle." "Pull the bars out when the fight starts." "Here they come." "Let us in there!" "Get it tight." "Get back!" "I'm warning you!" "Come on, he's shooting high!" "Let's get in there!" "I'm not shooting high next time!" "Why break any more doors open when you can dynamite them open?" "Here." "You want this?" "Here." "Here!" "Here!" "Dynamite!" "Get out of here!" "Get out of here!" "Get out!" "What happened to the crowd?" "Where's the noise?" "That crowd won't collect again." "Mob courage is a momentary thing." "Once it's gone, it's gone for good." "If they were as scared as I was, they're still running." "I near to joined them." "Hey, there's the leaders." "If we grab 'em, we can tie this thing up." "Hey, you, stay right where you are!" "Come on, Harry, let's get 'em!" "Something's gone wrong." "Keep your gun handy." "Pull these bars out." "You're good." "Very good." "That's what you paid me for." "There's no call, your mixing in this." "Just collect your money and forget about it." "Well, I couldn't do that." "I can't collect until you walk into that courtroom." "You hired me to see to it." "Look, I'll see you get $1,000." "Just walk away." "Well, that wouldn't be ethical." "I can't take another job until I finish this one." "Don't be a fool!" "I won't be." "Let's go around in front and wait for the sheriff." "We mustn't lose heart now." "Our situation, while difficult, is not impossible." "Oh, shut up." "Paladin." "This is yours now." "Thank you." "Let's go." "You know, Mr. Paladin, nearly everyone in this town is grateful to you today, though most of 'em won't admit it." "I'm admitting it." "And with such a long face?" "I'm so ashamed..." "and confused." "Why did you want me to hold your pay?" "Because it's an honest face as well... but is it never a smiling face?" "Oh, Amy can smile up a storm." "Eh, time was when she was all smiles and giggles and folderol." "Folderol, too." "I deserve to be made fun of." "There's a smile, and that's the prettiest face of all." "Well, I hope this is a just verdict." "It will be." "After the trial, Holgate'll climb on a horse." "He'll fall off that horse while riding under a tree." "His feet won't touch the ground, but the fall will break his neck all the same."