“I saw the whole story written out in his own hand,” he finally said, with a curious glitter in his half-veiled eyes. “I’ve just been up north trying to have him arrested,” he continued. “Broome here knows that; but I found the matter’d been patched up.”
“Hell! That ain’t no ways right.” The speaker steadied himself, and regarded the lawyer severely.
“They ain’t no justice in that,” he resumed. “Murder’s murder; an’ the punishment for murder’s hanging. I d’mand t’ know why he ain’t hung?”
“You’ll have to answer your own question,” was the quiet reply. “What are you going to do about that?”
“I know what I’d do about it,” Broome spoke this time. “I’d hang ’im myself, quick’s that,” snapping his fingers, “if I got the chance.”
“Lynching’s gone out of style,” sneered Westcott. “We’re law-abiding in Arizona now.”
“Law be damned,” Broome blustered. “Lynching’s too good fer ’im; but it’d serve, I guess.”
The word passed from one to another of the drunken group. The men looked at one another, and fell into a confused discussion.
“Did you say you saw that there confession in his own handwrite?” the stranger presently turned to ask of Westcott, but the lawyer had already hurried away.
“Don’t you worry none about that,” Broome answered for him, with an oath. “I tell ye, Hickey, I know what I’m talkin’ about. The man’s an escaped jail-bird that was in fer murder. He’s dodged the law, but hell! he ain’t dodged Thad Broome yet!”