“If he’s hanged, he’s hanged and dead before this. We didn’t hang him, or didn’t intend it. That’s clear.”
“I don’t think the law can touch us,” suggests the son of the judge.
“But it may give us trouble, and that must be avoided.”
“How do you propose to do, Alf?”
“It’s an old story that dead men tell no tales, and buried ones less.”
“Thar’s a good grist o’ truth in that,” interpolates Buck.
“The suicide wouldn’t stand. Not likely to. The cord might be cut away from the wrist; but then there’s Rook’s daughter. She saw him stop with us, and to find him swinging by the neck only half-an-hour after would be but poor proof of his having committed self-murder. No, boys, he must be put clean out of sight.”
“That’s right; that’s the only safe way,” cried all the others.
“Come on, then. We musn’t lose a minute about it. The girl may come back to see what’s keeping him, or old Rook, himself, may be straying that way, or somebody else travelling along the trace. Come on.”
“Stay,” exclaimed Randall. “There’s something yet—something that should be done before any chance separates us.”