“He was out here the first thing this morning; you'd have thought he owned Belle Plain. There was a couple of strangers with him, and he had me in and fired questions at me for half an hour, then he hiked off up to The Oaks.”
“Murrell's been arrested,” said Ware in a dull level voice. Hicks gave him a glance of unmixed astonishment.
“No!” he cried.
“Yes, by God!”
“Who'd risk it?”
“Risk it? Man, he almost fainted dead away—a damned coward. Hell!”
“How do you know this?” asked Hicks, appalled.
“I was with him when he was taken—it was Hues the man he trusted more than any other!” Ware gave the overseer a ghastly grin and was silent, but in that silence he heard the drumming of his own heart. He went on. “I tell you to save himself John Murrell will implicate the rest of us; we've got to get him free, and then, by hell—we ought to knock him in the head; he isn't fit to live!”
“The jail ain't built that'll hold him!!” muttered Hicks.
“Of course, he can't be held,” agreed Ware. “And 'he'll never be brought to trial; no lawyer will dare appear against him, no jury will dare find him guilty; but there's Hues, what about him?” He paused. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.