I had seen murder done, of the most horrible kind. I had seen a big-hearted, sparkling-eyed man, not yet in his prime, struck out of life in a moment. What he was telling me of himself was nothing to me now. I only knew that I had come to like him and that he was gone—slain by this little, insignificant creature that you could not call a man. And I had seen another man, whom I did not altogether hate, sent to as summary an end. I held this man who talked in the sing-song voice at my feet in horror, in loathing. I bent to feel the heart of Apache Kid, for I thought I saw a movement in his sun-browned neck, as of a vein throbbing and—
"O! They're dead, dead and done with," cried Canlan. "If they was n't, I 'd shove another shot into each of 'em just to make sure. But they 're dead men, for Canlan killed 'em. If they was n't, I 'd shove another shot into each of them!"
The words rang in my ears with warning. I had just been on the point of trying to raise Apache Kid; a cry of joy was almost on my lips to think that life was not extinct; but the words warned me and I turned about.
"He's dead, ain't he?" said Canlan, and I lied to him.
"Yes," I replied. "He is dead, and as for you——"
"As for me—nothing!" said Canlan, and he looked along his gleaming barrel at where my heart fluttered in my breast.
"You and me," said he, "has to come to terms right now. Oh! I don't disrespec' you none for not takin' kindly to this. I like you all the better for it. But think of what you 've fallen into all through me. Here 's half shares in the Lost Cabin Mine for you now instead of a paltry third—half shares, my lad. How does that catch you?"
I was not going to tell him the terms I was here on, but I said:
"Put down your rifle then, and let us talk it over."
"Come, now, that's better," said Canlan, cheerily; but I noticed that a nerve in his left cheek kept twitching oddly as he spoke, and his head gave constant nervous jerks left and right, like a man shaking flies away from him, and he sniffed constantly, and I think was quite unaware that he did so. But I did not wonder at his nervousness after such a heinous deed as he had performed that evening.