Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/308

 on the back of her head to the ears. Her sex did not assert itself in one gentle, comely line.

"He did the best he could to put through what you started him out to do, madam," Rawlins said with stern arraignment, "but you went too heavy on a chance shot that made a weak bad man out of a fool. Peck was a crow down in his gizzard. He isn't here any longer."

She stood there swallowing dry lumps, gulping, staring, wetting her lips with her tongue.

"You didn't—you didn't—kill him, did you, Ned?"

"He was too damned onery to kill!" said Rawlins vehemently. "But he's dead to you from this day on."

Mrs. Peck appeared entirely overwhelmed, whether by guilt, remorse, a sense of her treachery, Rawlins could not tell. Only that she was crushed, smashed flat, her boisterous assurance gone, her loud authority silenced in her vulgar mouth. She did not attempt any denial, nor utter one weak word of defence. She was caught and convicted, and she realized it. Whatever her accomplishments in a business way, effrontery she had not learned.

"Come in; I've got something of yours I want to give you," Rawlins ordered, rather than invited.

Perhaps Mrs. Peck thought it was the money. At any rate she did not hesitate, but entered as Rawlins stepped aside at the door to let her pass. She stopped short a little way within the door, looking around with renewed fear on sight of the disorder that had urged her out a few minutes before in search of the answer. She was about to get the answer now, and she was afraid.