“Now you’ve done it,” he said, finding speech with difficulty. “You’ve killed the man.”
The conductor, looking conscience-stricken and anxious, leaned far out and gazed back, and then pulled the bell-cord.
“He needn’t have jumped. I wouldn’t have thrown him off; never did such a thing in my life,” he muttered.
“He didn’t jump. You assaulted him, when all he wanted was to get off quietly. You pulled your gun on him, when neither of us was armed. It’s murder, and you’ll be shown what that means.”
Elliott felt that he had the moral supremacy. The conductor made no reply, and the train came to a stop.
“You’d better go back and look after your partner,” he said, in a subdued manner. “I’m mighty sorry. I’d never have hurt him if he’d stayed quiet. It’s only a couple of miles to Alton,” he added, as Elliott jumped down, “and you can take him into St. Louis all right, if he isn’t hurt bad. I’d wait and take you in myself if I wasn’t eighteen minutes late already.”
The train was moving ahead again before Elliott had reached its rear. He ran as fast as he could, and while still a great way off he was relieved to see Bennett sitting up among the weeds near the fence where he had been pitched by the fall. He was leaning on his arms and spitting blood profusely.
“Are you hurt much, old man? I thought you’d be killed!” cried Elliott, hurrying up.
Bennett looked at him in a daze. His face was terribly cut and bruised with the gravel, and the blood had made a sort of paste with the smoke-dust on his cheeks. His clothes were rent into great tatters.
“Don’t wait for me,” he muttered, thickly. “Go ahead. Don’t miss the train. I’m—all right.”