There was no answer. Royce Mack took an impulsive half-step between the speaker and the wondering collie. Fenno did not speak nor stir. His sick old eyes were still fixed on Garry with a world of appeal in them. Garry spoke again; this time with a tinge of angry impatience in his tone.
“Well,” he rasped, “I’m waiting to see it done. I reckon I’ve paid for my seat to the show. I paid for it with eleven killed sheep. And I don’t aim to go from here till I make sure the Killer is put out of the way for good. We can settle, later, for the sheep of mine he slaughtered and for my good little old collie, too. But that can wait. Just now, the main thing is to see he don’t do any more killing.”
Neither partner answered. Garry laid a hand on the rifle he had strapped across his saddlebow when he had started forth on the Killer-hunt. The gesture made old Fenno shake from head to foot as with a congestive chill.
Royce Mack, hollow-eyed and desperate, pushed the amazed collie behind him; and stood shielding him with his own athletic body.
“That won’t get you nowheres!” sternly reproved Garry, noting the instinctive motion, and unstrapping his rifle as he spoke. “You know the law as well as I do. You ought to be thankful we’ve nailed him before he could do any more killing. It isn’t once in a blue moon that a Killer is nabbed at the very start; before he c’n get away to the hills. We’re plumb lucky. Now, then, will you shoot him; or do you want me to do it? Which’ll it be? Speak up, quick!”
“Wait!” sputtered Royce, stammering in his heartsick eagerness. “Wait! This dog’s my chum. He’s never done anything like this, before. He’d never have done it, now; if he hadn’t gone crazy, some way. I’ve read about sheep dogs ‘going bad,’ like this. It isn’t their fault. Any more’n it’s a human’s fault, if he goes crazy. Folks don’t shoot a human that’s lost his wits. They shut him up somewheres and treat him kind; and then, like as not, he gets his mind back again. It’s likely the same with a dog. I—”
“It’s you that’s lost your mind!” scoffed Garry, angrily, as he fingered his rifle. “If you haven’t the whiteness or the nerve to shoot him, stand clear; and I’ll do it, myself. He—”
“Wait!” implored poor Mack, the sweat running down his tortured face. “Hold on! Let me finish. Here’s my proposition:—I’ll pay you double market price on your eleven killed sheep and on your dog he killed. And I’ll put up a thousand-dollar bond to keep Treve tied or else in the house, all the time. I’ll do this, if you and your man will call it square and keep your mouths shut about his going bad. I’m offering this, on my own hook. My partner hates Treve, anyhow. So I’m not asking him to share the cost or the responsibility. How about it, Garry? Is it a go?”