“Pity you didn’t bring the gun,” Brant said, equally generous. “He’d’ve had a heart attack.”
George sniggered. Brant, he decided, wasn’t such a had sort after all. “I’ll fix him if he tries anything funny,” he went on grandly. “What with my gun and your sticker, we’ve got him where we want him.”
“You’re a pretty good shot, I Suppose?” Brant said, his head down and his yellow hair plastered flat by the rain.
“Me?” George laughed, delighted with Brant’s interest. “I was considered to be fair enough. I could split a playing- card edge on at twenty-five yards. Bit out of practice now, of course.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Brant said, hunching his shoulders. “I bet you’ve bumped off a few guys in your day.”
George opened his mouth, saw the trap just in time, and walked on without speaking. It would he stimulating to brag that he had been a killer, but not to Brant. It was safe enough to tell Ella. She wouldn’t talk, but Brant might.
“What’s it like, killing a guy?” Brant asked, after a moment’s pause.
“That’s something I don’t talk about,” George returned, shortly.
Brant glanced at him. “Kelly killed a lot of men, didn’t he?”
That was safer ground. “A good few,” George said, shrugging his big shoulders carelessly. “It was us or them in those days.”