“I’m afraid I should, Miss Trowbridge. Honest, now, isn’t there a chance that he is the one?”
“Oh, no, no! But, Mr. Pinckney, tell me something. Supposing, just supposing for a minute, that it might be Kane,—you know he’s been out West for five years, and out there they don’t look on killing as we do here, do they?”
“What have you in mind? A sheriff rounding up a posse of bad men, or a desperado fighting his captor, or just a friendly shooting over a card game—have you been reading dime novels?”
“No. It’s just a vague impression. I thought they didn’t call killing people murder——”
“Yes, they do, if it’s murder in cold blood. Westerners only kill in avenging justice or in righteous indignation.”
“Really? I’m glad you told me that. Do you know, Mr. Pinckney, I’m not going to sit quietly down and let Kane be accused of this thing. I don’t know whether he did it or not, but he’s going to have his chance. I know him pretty well, and he’s so stubborn that he won’t take pains to appear innocent even when he is. That sounds queer, I know, but you see, I know Kane. He is queer. If that boy is innocent, and I believe he is, he would be so sure of it himself that he’d make no effort to convince others; and he’d let himself be misjudged, perhaps, even arrested through sheer carelessness.”
“It is, indeed, a careless nature that will go as far as that!”
“It isn’t only carelessness; it’s a kind of pig-headed stubbornness. He’s always been like that.”
“And if he should be guilty?”
“Then,—” and Avice hesitated, “then, I think he’d act just exactly the same.”