“I don’t like that word, Farley,” Dalton cut in, his voice as expressionless as before, his form as still. “You call him Johnny? Well, men’s names change often enough out in this country for us not to quibble. I suppose he’s carried a good many names since I saw him last.”
“You knew him? A long time ago?”
“Yes. I hadn’t seen him for over fifteen years, until——”
He didn’t finish. Instead, he said after a moment:
“And being his pardner, you are going to try to square things for him; to be judge and jury and hangman; to kill the man who killed him? Well, every man is his own court out here, where we are so far beyond the law. And when a man is dead it is up to his pardner. That is the way you feel about it?”
“Yes,” Dalton laughed mirthlessly. “We are beyond the law here—we are not beyond the reach of justice. Justice—or revenge? It is hard to see one for the other, sometimes! You want to kill me, then?”
“There is no use talking that way, Dalton,” Farley frowned. “You have lived here too long; you know too well what is the result of the thing which you have done—you don’t deny it?”
“Will it make any difference what I say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“You are going to try to kill me,” Dalton continued. “That won’t help your dead friend much, but you’ll do it just the same. I have no desire to be killed by you or by any other man. But soon there is going to be another dead man here—you or I? And Virginia! I wonder what she is going to do. That complicates matters, but it doesn’t in any great degree alter them, does it? She’ll be back from the lake pretty soon. We’d better get this over with, unless you’ll listen to a proposition I’m going to make?”