During this Sunday morning talk I was little more than an abstracted listener. I could think of nothing but the raw hazard of the previous night and of the frightful moral abyss into which it had precipitated me. In addition there were ominous forebodings for the future. So long as Kellow remained in Cripple Creek, danger would lurk for me in every shadow. Since the calamity which was threatening me would also involve my partners, at least to the extent of handicapping them by the loss of a third of our fighting force, it seemed no less than a duty to warn them. But I doubt if I should have had the courage if Barrett had not opened the way.
"You're not saying much, Jimmie. Did the trip to town last night knock you out?" he asked.
It was my opportunity, and I mustered sufficient resolution to seize it.
"No; it didn't knock me out, but it showed me where I've been making a mistake. I never ought to have gone into this thing with you two fellows; but now that I am in, I ought to get out."
"What's that!" Gifford exploded; but Barrett merely caught my eye and said, very gently, "On your own account, or on ours, Jimmie?"
"On yours. There is no need of going into the particulars; it's a long story and a pretty dismal one; but when I tell you that last night I was on the point of killing a man in cold blood—that it's altogether probable that I shall yet have to kill him—you can see what I'm letting you in for if I stay with you."
Gifford leaned back against the shack wall and laughed. "Oh, if that's all," he said. But again it was Barrett who took the soberer view.
"You are one of us, Jimmie," he declared. "If you've got a blood quarrel with somebody, it's our quarrel, too: we're partners. Isn't that right, Gifford?"
"Right it is," nodded the carpenter.
"We are not partners to that extent," I objected. "If I should tell you all the circumstances, you might both agree with me that I may be obliged to kill this man; but on the other hand, you—or a jury—would call it first-degree murder; as it will be."