“Pin him, Frank,” ordered Kent.
But Sedgwick needed no directions, now that resolute action was the order of the moment. His elbow was already pressed into the sheriff’s bull neck. Schlager lay still, moaning a little.
“Good work, my boy,” approved Kent, who had retrieved the revolver.
“Who clubbed me?” groaned the fallen man. “I didn’t see no third feller. And what good’s it going to do you, anyway? There you are, and there’s the robbed grave. Exaggerated by assault on an officer of the law,” he added technically.
“That is right, too, Kent,” added Sedgwick with shaking voice. “Whatever we do, I don’t see but what we are disgraced and ruined.”
“Unless,” suggested Kent with mild-toned malice, “we rid ourselves of the only witness to the affair.”
A little gasp issued from the thick lips of Len Schlager. But he spoke with courage, and not without a certain dignity. “You got me,” he admitted quietly. “If it’s killin’—why, I guess it’s as good a way to go as any. An officer in the discharge of his duty.”
“Not so sure about the duty, Schlager,” said Kent with a change of tone. “But your life is safe enough, in any event. Pity you’re such a grafter, for you’ve got your decent points. Let him up, Sedgwick.”
Relieved of his assailant’s weight, Schlager undertook to rise, set his hand on the ground, and collapsed with a groan.
“Too bad about that wrist,” said Kent. “I’ll take you back in my car to have it looked after as soon as we’ve finished here.”