"I told you he'd gone. Maybe he didn't git away till this mornin', but he's gone now all right. What in thunder do ye want o' him? I reckon I kin tell ye all thet Murphy knows."
For a breathless moment neither spoke, Hampton fingering his gun nervously, his eyes lingering on that brutal face.
"Slavin," he said at last, his voice hard, metallic, "I 've figured it out, and I do know you now, you lying brute. You are the fellow who swore you saw me throw away the gun that did the shooting, and that afterwards you picked it up."
There was the spirit of murder in his eyes, and the gambler cowered back before them, trembling like a child.
"I—I only swore to the last part, Captain," he muttered, his voice scarcely audible. "I—I never said I saw you throw—-"
"And I swore," went on Hampton, "that I would kill you on sight. You lying whelp, are you ready to die?"
Slavin's face was drawn and gray, the perspiration standing in beads upon his forehead, but he could neither speak nor think, fascinated by those remorseless eyes, which seemed to burn their way down into his very soul.
"No? Well, then, I will give you, to-day, just one chance to live—one, you dog—one. Don't move an eyelash! Tell me honestly why you have been trying to get word with the girl, and you shall go out from here living. Lie to me about it, and I am going to kill you where you sit, as I would a mad dog. You know me, Slavin—now speak!"
So intensely still was it, Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more pitiful sight, but there was no mercy in the eyes of the man watching him.
"Speak, you cringing hound!"