Elvine was held even against herself. The expression of his eyes, even more than the curious sharpness of his voice, troubled her, alarmed her.
"I'm not going to yarn more than necessary," he went on after a moment. "There isn't any need. I just want to give you the deadly facts. As I said, I knew his layout, where he was—supposed to be trapping pelts. Supposed. Bud had been raised in the district, so he acted scout. He made the location and found him. D'you know how?"
There was a restrained fierceness in the sharp demand.
The woman shook her head. Any word would have seemed out of place.
"Hanging by the neck to the bough of a tree."
"Jeff, don't!" the woman gasped.
But now there was a smile in the man's eyes. It was a terrible smile which drove every vestige of color from his wife's cheeks.
"I had to tell you," he cried harshly. "They hanged him for a cattle thief. He was one. Oh, yes. He was one. That's why I had to tell you."
The woman's eyes were wide with a sudden terror to which the man remained oblivious.
"But you said——"