He turned then and went down the stairs. He was stunned, but he was smiling as he stepped out on the street which would bring him in contact with men he knew. Crossing diagonally the shaded green where gray haired "boys" pitched horse shoes at a peg—the "cou'thouse squar," bounded by the town's four streets—he deliberately sat upon the whittled steps of that old building, at about the moment Jess was ringing the Colonel's front door bell.
Dale had stood as still as marble, except to moisten his lips which were becoming very dry. He had been willing enough to accept Brent's plan of refuge, before a blood equation developed, but now things were different. His honour, as a man of the mountains knows and sustains his honour, would permit him but one course.
"Brent ain't to be relied on, when it comes to this business," he said, at last.
"Now, look-ee-heah," the sheriff bristled again, "I don't let no man make Brent out a liar; I don't kyeer who he is!"
"I ain't makin' Brent out a liar, Jess; but you don't know how this thing is! The night after I killed Tusk, Brent came in my room an' said he's goin' to take the blame. He said he was doin' it for the fun of the thing; but I knew better'n that from somethin' I heard one time. I knew he was doin' it for Miss Jane. I reckon I was so blame thankful I didn't think of it then—not till I went to his room later. But he was sittin' in the dark, lookin' out the window, an', as he didn't hear me, I slipped back."
The sheriff's face was a study, but no one could have described the look on another face pressed close to the folds of the library window curtains. Only the angels knew why her eyes grew wide and wonderingly deep with a new sort of tears that never before had bathed them. The imps of hell may have surmised why her nails again pressed into her palms when Dale added:
"I was afraid he might be sorry for havin' made that promise; an', not wantin' him to change his mind, I never went back. You see, it looked like there might a-been a leetle chance one time of his takin' the teacher away—so jail was the best place for 'im. I wouldn't be tellin' you this, but—but there's other things to be considered."
"Are you drunk?" Jess suddenly asked.
"No, I ain't drunk! Come on; I'll go!"
"Don't be so danged fast, young feller," the sheriff advised. "When did you kill Tusk?"