“Won’t he!” muttered the older man on an indrawn breath. “I’d rather it was the other scoundrel. But either—or both.”
Sedgwick stepped to within two paces of him. “Blair,” he said with a snarl, “you so much as think with that trigger finger, and you’re dead!”
“No, no killing, Frank,” countermanded Kent. “In his place, you’d perhaps do as he is doing.”
“Don’t take any chances, Mr. Blair,” besought the sheriff. “They’re desperate characters. Look what they done to me!”
“There’s a testimonial,” murmured Kent, as he picked up his spade, “for one who has always worked on the side of law and order.”
He worked the blade craftily under the lid and began to pry. The cover gave slightly. Mr. Blair’s pistol sank to his side. “I should have shot before warning you,” he said bitterly. “Violating graves is, I suppose, your idea of a lawful and orderly proceeding.”
The rending crackle of the hard heavy wood was his answer. Kent stooped, and struggled up bearing a shapeless heavy object in his arms. The object seemed to be swathed in sacking. Kent let it fall to the ground, where it lopped and lay. “All right,” said he, with a strong exhalation of relief. “I knew it must be. And yet—well, one never is absolute in certainty. And if I’d been wrong, I think, Frank, we could profitably have used that gun on ourselves. You can drop it, now. Come over here.”
Courageous though Sedgwick was, his nerves were of a highly sensitive order. He shuddered back. “I don’t believe I can do it, Chet.”
“You must. As a witness. Come! Brace up!”
Setting the bull’s-eye lantern down, Kent produced a pocket-knife. Sedgwick drew a long breath, and walking over, crouched, steeling his nerves against the revelation that should come when the cords should be cut and the swathings reveal their contents. “If I keel over, don’t let me tumble into the grave,” he said simply, and choked the last word off from becoming a cry of horror as he beheld his friend drive the knife-blade to the hilt in the body, and then whip it across and downward with a long ripping draw under which the harsh cloth sang hideously.