“Somebody's shot Jeff Warren down thar by the fence. He's as dead as a door-nail. I'm goin' to send out the alarm an' git the sheriff.”
In a cloud of self-raised dust Langston dashed away. Hoag stood hesitating for a moment, then turned back to Paul, finding him seated on the decaying trunk of a fallen tree, the gun resting on his slender knees. Hoag stood before him.
“You've got to git out o' this,” he panted, excitedly. “You've done a thing that the court will hold you responsible for. I ain't sure you was justified nohow. The fellow was just in love, that's all. A jury will call it unprovoked, cold-blood, deliberate, what-not. You ain't in no fix to fight it, an' you'd be a plumb idiot to stay here an' let 'em lay hold of you.' The only sensible thing for you to do is to show a clean pair o' heels, an' git out for good an' all. You don't seem overly satisfied here with them women on your hands nohow, an' the world is big and wide. I don't want my name used—mind that. If you do git caught an' fetched back, I hope you'll have the decency not to lug me an' this advice in even under oath. I'm tryin' to help you. Make a bee-line through the mountains to North Carolina an' board the first train. Throw that gun down. Don't be caught red-handed; it would be a plumb give-away.”
“What's the use?” Paul shifted his feet, and raised his sullen eyes.
“Thar's a heap o' use,” Hoag returned, impatiently. “You may not think so now, but you will after you've laid in that dang dirty jail in town, an' been tuck to court to be gazed at by the public, with no money to pay fees with, no friends on hand, an' nothin' before you but to be hung by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead. Take my advice. Git away off some'r's in the world, change your name, burn yore bridges behind you, an' start life 'new all for yoreself without any load like the one you've always had like a millstone round your neck.”
Paul rose to his feet, rested the stock of his gun on the trunk of the tree; he looked off through the twilight wistfully.
“You really think that would be best?” he faltered.
“It certainly will, if you kin manage to git away,” Hoag said. “Why, if you stay here, you will be in a damn sight wuss fix than the skunk you shot. He's out o' his trouble, but if you stay here yours will just be beginnin'.”
“Well, I'll go,” Paul consented. “I can get away all right. I know the woods and mountains.”
“Well, throw your gun down behind that log an make off. Say, if they press you hard on your way through the country, an' you find yourself near the farms of Tad Barton, Press Talcot, Joe Thomas, or old man Jimmy Webb, say this to 'em—tell 'em I said—No, I won't give you no password. I haven't got the right to do it without due form. It's ag'in' the rules; but you tell either of 'em that I said put you out of sight, give you grub or a place to sleep, an' that I said pass you along to the railroad. Got any money? Here is five dollars. I owe you that much, anyway, and it's all I happen to have in my pocket. Now, you hit the grit.”