“Certainly.” MacQueen tugged at his little black mustache and kept his black eyes on her constantly. “That’s not what we’re blaming him for. The indictment against your friend is that he interfered when it wasn’t his business.”
“But it was his business. Don’t you know he’s 293 sheriff? He had to do it.” Melissy turned to the outlaw impetuously.
“So. And I have to play my hand out, too. It wipes out Mr. Flatray. Sorry, but business is business.”
“But—but——” Melissy grew pale as the icy fear gripped her heart that the man meant to go on with the crime. “Don’t you see? He’s the sheriff?”
“And I never did love sheriffs,” drawled MacQueen.
The girl repeated herself helplessly. “It was his sworn duty. That was how he looked at it.”
A ghost of an ironic smile flitted across the face of the outlaw chief. “Rosario’s sworn duty is to avenge her son’s death. That is how she looks at it. The rest of us swore the oath with her.”
“But Lieutenant O’Connor had the law back of him. This is murder!”
“Not at all. It is the law of the valley—a life for a life.”
“But—— Oh, no—no—no!”