“What was it for?” she asked, coldly.
“For murder—killin’ them men three or four years back. They’ve got the dead wood on ’em now—since the young one told all about it.”
“Has he confessed? What did he say?”
“Enough to hang him and them too, I heard. You see they tanked him up and led him on till he put his head in the noose. Oh! they’re pretty slick ones, them detectives is. They got him to pilot ’em most to the jail door, and then they slipped him in there, to keep him till they take him to the city to-morrow. He was so drunk—don’t nobody know who he was, and he didn’t know himself. And they huntin’ all over the country for him!” He laughed till he had to support himself against the door.
The expression on Ruth’s face was such that the man noticed it.
“Oh! don’t you mind it, miss. I don’t think they’re after the young one. They’re after the two elder ones, and if he gives it away so they ever get them they’ll be easy on him.”
Ruth uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“He’ll never give it away——” She checked herself.
“Don’t know—a man’ll do a heap to save his own neck.” He made a gesture, drawing his hand across his throat significantly.
“I know that young man, and I say he’ll die before he’d betray anyone—much less his cousin and brother.”