"Laws!" snorted the old woman contemptuously, "what good would all the laws be to Ken arter Matlock had him pumped full o' lead? Thar's only one law fer rattlesnakes on ther range, honey—kill 'em befoah they gits a chanct ter strike!" The leathery old face twitched venomously and she slashed the pie top with suggestive vigor.
"But that would be murder!" gasped the girl, her face gray with horror.
"Murder, huh! An' what would it be if Matlock has his way? Didn't he kill thet sheepherd—who whopped him fair an' squar'—in cold blood? Didn't he jest nat'rally butcher thet pore Dutch boy arter fust cripplin' o' his gun on ther sly, ther tre'cherous haound! Murder—!"
Her gray crest was erect and she was breathing audibly through passion-pinched nostrils. She put her hand kindly on the girl's shoulder. "Hit's got ter be one or t'other on 'em, honey. They hain't no other way. An' out yeah whar wimmin 'n children air left alone a heap at times hit's every good man's duty ter pertect his own. Did yuh heah what happened ter thet sheepman's wife thet night arter they killed her man?
"Hit war one man done hit arter the rest was gone. He was masked, o' cose, but all thu rest o' yuh outfit was at thu Alcazar—Matlock with 'em—so's ter prove a alleyby. Thu one that were shy was thu feller they found on Hoss Creek a week later with nine buckshot in his rotten heart." And then she avoided the girl's eyes as she whispered something that brought Grace to her feet screaming with horror.
"Naow I ain't sayin'," she went on slowly, "thet Matlock is as low as thet. T'other was a half-breed 'n some say a convick. But thar's no room fer him on this range naow, an' he knows it. An' that kind o' man allus goes bad. He's got it in specul fer Ken, an' hit's suah one er t'other on 'em." And then she shot her last bolt mercilessly:
"Would yuh ruther he killed Ken?"
Outside somewhere a raven, scavengering indolently about the corrals, croaked gutturally; never again as long as she lived would Grace Carter hear without shuddering the uncanny dissonance of that foul bird. In the silence of that suddenly oppressive room the ticking of the little cheap alarm clock on the mantel beat upon her brain like the strokes of a drum, seeming to her disordered mind to say "Kill-Ken!—Kill-Ken!"
She passed her hand numbly over her forehead, mechanically adjusting a stray wisp of hair. She was dimly conscious of an agony of compunction on the wrinkled face before her, but it excited in her only a dull wonder. Why was Abbie looking so strangely at her? If only that tiresome clock would cease its muttering! What was this strange thing now happening to her, this slipping away of a part of herself, this new and perturbing sense of sudden oldness and wisdom and—and heart-wrenching fear! For a moment she plucked petulantly at the velvet band about her throat; the room seemed reeling about her and she swayed unsteadily on her feet.
With a cry of keen self-reproach, Abigail threw her arm around the tottering girl and bore her into the darkened bedroom. When she emerged later it was with a sorely troubled mien.