“Got the papers for that?” he asked calmly. But his jaw had squared.
“I've got something better than papers. Your boss is dead. I shot him just now. He's lying back there by the stable.” Good Indian tilted his head backward, without taking his eyes from Stanley's face—and Stanley's right hand, too, perhaps. “If you don't want the same medicine, I'd advise you to quit.”
Stanley's jaw dropped, but it was surprise which slackened the muscles.
“You—shot—”
“Baumberger. I said it.”
“You'll hang for that,” Stanley stated impersonally, without moving.
Good Indian smiled, but it only made his face more ominous.
“Well, they can't hang a man more than once. I'll see this ranch cleaned up while I'm about it. I'd just as soon,” he added composedly, “be hanged for nine men as for one.”
Stanley sat on his haunches, and regarded him unwinkingly for so long that Phoebe's nerves took a panic, and she drew Evadna away from the place. The boys edged closer, their hands resting suggestively upon their gun-butts. Old Peaceful half-raised his rifle, and held it so. It was like being compelled to watch a fuse hiss and shrivel and go black toward a keg of gun-powder.
“I believe, by heck, you would!” said Stanley at last, and so long a time had elapsed that even Good Indian had to think back to know what he meant. Stanley squinted up at the sun, hitched himself up so that his back rested against the tree more comfortably, inspected his cigarette, and then fumbled for a match with which to relight it. “How'd you find out Baumberger was back uh this deal?” he asked curiously and without any personal resentment in tone or manner, and raked the match along his thigh.