The train pulled in. I told McCluskey there had been a shooting, and to hold the train.
“Can’t back her in. We’ll run out to the first switch!” he cried, as he jumped into the cab with the engineer.
I ran back to find four men bearing a form between them. Lanagan was alongside the leader of the four, talking swiftly. They kicked in the door of the hut and made a light. On the floor, littered just as it had been littered the Sunday morning of the murder discovery, they placed the figure they bore, a stalwart figure of a man. A leg and an arm, I could see, were useless. They felt of his arm and leg and he never winced, staring straight at the ceiling. They ripped away his oilskin coat, his over-shirt and undershirt. He had a bullet just over the heart, a deep wound and one that bled inwardly, for no blood oozed out.
Two of the four men had deposited on the floor bulky bundles wrapped in rubber, around which double pairs of life preservers were strapped.
He who seemed to be the leader of the four (“Marshall, chief revenue inspector,” Lanagan whispered to me), took the man’s pulse after the examination was ended. No one had spoken. In the faces of all, as far as I could detect in the murky light of the smoky chimney of an oil lamp, was a set, grim look; not the look that officers usually wear when there has been a killing or a successful capture in a crime.
Marshall straightened up. He said, solemnly:
“Billy, I think you are going. What have you got to say? Any message?”
“No, Jim,” said the man on the floor, weakly. “You got me right. I went into the thing with my eyes open. Only don’t ask me to squeal on the others. I got what I deserved, I guess. I’ve brought shame to the service and I’m ready to pass. Thank God, thank God,” he burst out with sudden choking, “the wife is not here—passed out last year, you know; and there never were any kiddies. No one to suffer but you boys that I’ve disgraced.”
A tear rolled from his eyes to the floor.
“Can I say a word to him, Marshall?” It was Lanagan who spoke. The other men had bowed their heads. On one or two faces I could see a tear, for all the wetness that the rain had left there.