“Lay down the rifle,” he ordered.
Goodrich obeyed. The man let his revolver rest on the blankets. The match in his fingers burned out. The pale gleam of the moon through a tangle of boughs showed them dimly to each other.
“Let’s get down to cases,” he said. “What kind of jack pot have you got into?”
“I killed a man on Cortez Island a few days back,” Goodrich answered quietly. “There’s two officers about twelve hours behind me on the river. I figure I was justified. I don’t intend to be taken. I’ve got a bad lung—a touch of T. B. A month or two in jail would probably set me back so I’d never shake it off—even if I come clear on trial. I don’t like jails nohow. Life’s too short for me to lay in one. That’s all.”
“H’m,” the man grunted. “So you were going to swap outfits with me. I was to be the fall guy for these constables, eh? They’d grab me and turn back? Was that it?”
“Something like that,” Goodrich admitted.
“That’s a mean hole to put a man in,” the other commented. “What give you the idea?”
“A fellow did it to me once down in California,” Goodrich answered dispassionately. “It didn’t hurt me much, though I was pretty sore at the time. Spoiled a hunt in the Monterey hills was about all. These fellows don’t know me by sight. While they were taking you out and you were getting identified, I’d make my get-away clean.”
“Suppose I take you in myself,” the man observed suggestively. “According to your own account you’ve killed a man. You were going to put me in a nasty position. I might have got gay with these constables not knowing what I was up against, and got shot all to pieces myself. I don’t know but I ought to take you in myself.”
“You won’t,” Goodrich answered soberly. He meant this. There was no doubt in his mind; only a grim determination. “There’s times in a man’s life when he has to do something desperate. I didn’t shoot this fellow because I wanted to. I had to. I don’t propose to be penalized for it. No, you nor nobody else will take me in. At least, not alive.”