Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/240

222 you did n't shoot and get those papers away from him?"

For an instant their eyes battled. But Gibbs had never the strength of his leader. If he had, it would have been asserted long since. He sucked in his breath, and his gaze fell away. It rested on Cranston's rifle, that in some manner had been pulled up across his knees. And at once he was cowed. He was never so fast with a gun as Cranston.

"Blood on my hands, eh—same as on yours?" he mumbled, looking down. "What do you think I want, a rope around my neck? These hills are big, but the arm of the law has reached up before, and it might again. You might as well know first as last I'm not goin' to do any killin's to cover up your murders."

"That comes of not going myself. You fool—if he gets that evidence down to the courts, you 're broken the same as me."

"But I would n't get more'n a year or so, at most—and that's a heap different from the gallows. I did aim at him—"

"But you just lacked the guts to pull the trigger!"

"I did, and I ain't ashamed of it. But besides—the snows are here now, and he won't be able to even get word down to the valleys