"Reckon yer right this time," said old Archie McKim. "Right in part, anyhow. Jim's quality. If he was desperate enough to shoot a man he'd use a bullet an' have a proper duel. He ain't the kind to pump no partridge shot into any man."
"Aye, that's right," said Widow Wilson, with her clear, smiling glance still upon the long arm of the law. "That young gentleman didn't shoot Amos Hammond. It was me shot 'im. An' who's got a better right to shoot that flinty-hearted weasel, I'd like to know? Ye didn't reckon the poor old widdy woman had the spunk to up an' fire off a gun, did ye now? I borrowed the ca'tridges from the young gentleman—I know a gentleman when I see 'im, an' always did—an' told 'im how I was huntin' rabbits. So he driv off to the village an' I waited round in the woods an' kep' an eye on the road, for I knew Amos Hammond was up-river at his dirty work. I waited till he come drivin' down the road, an' then I see the young gentleman a-drivin' home. Hammond, he pulls up fair in the middle of the track an' starts right in sassin' the lad an' miscallin' this house. Out hops Mr. Todhunter an' jerks Amos Hammond down from his seat an' slaps his face an' drags 'im round an' scrudges his face in the snow an' then heaves 'im up into the sleigh again. Then he jumps into his pung an' drives off up the glen. 'That's good,' sez I to meself, 'but it ain't enough. There be more a-comin' to 'im, even afore he's smit by the wrath o' God. He's been cheatin' an' lyin' an' slanderin' an' persecutin' all these years,' sez I to meself—an' so I ups an' shoots a shoot into his dirty carcass."
"You did it?" cried Flora, turning a bloodless face and stricken eyes upon the old woman.
"Sure I done it; an' I wisht it was buckshot," replied the brisk old dame.
The girl got out of her chair clumsily, crossed the kitchen with bowed head and vanished up the back stairs. The others gazed after her, some anxiously, all inquiringly.
"She needn't feel that bad for me," said Mrs. Wilson. "It's real sweet of her, bless her heart, but I ain't worryin'."
"Ain't ye tryin' to play a joke on us, ma'am?" asked the sheriff.
"The joke was on Amos Hammond, if it was a joke," replied the widow cheerily.
"Maybe ye've imagined it all in yer own mind, ma'am."
"In my own mind? It would have been buckshot, an' he'd be dead now, if that was the way of it!"