The last words roused him. He started like a captive who forgets that he is bound.
Red Crest was standing on the ground with a noose in his hands. Eagerness seemed to be devouring the Indian.
“Are you ready, Dan?—no praying—no last words?”
“None, but to tell you, boy, that you’re hanging a man who can throw at your feet the biggest bonanza that ever existed.”
“Going back to the lie, eh—to the secret you have made up? Ha! I thought you would beg at the last moment.”
“Beg! who’s begging?” was the flashing reply. “Dan Darrell never begged for his life. He has told the truth. As he is shortly to appear some place, beyond this planet—just where he can’t say—but somewhere before a great Judge, he swears that there is a secret connected with your life.”
Judge Lynch, Jr., bent forward and peered into the man’s face.
Honesty was written there in characters which no eye could misjudge. The boy judge trembled; he seemed to feel that he had reached one of the most momentous periods of his life.
And he was about to hang the possessor of some important secret. The thought worried him.