"You've got a nerve to come out here an' tell me I'm the man that killed Cunningham," Olson flung out, his face flushing darkly.
"I'm not sayin' that."
"What are you sayin', then? Shoot it at me straight."
"If I thought you had killed Cunningham I wouldn't be here now. What I thought when I came was that you might know somethin' about it. I didn't come out here to trap you. My idea is that Hull did it. But I've made up my mind you're hidin' somethin'. I'm sure of it. You as good as told me so. What is it?" Kirby, resting easy in the saddle with his weight on one stirrup, looked straight into the rancher's eyes as he asked the question.
"I'd be likely to tell you if I was, wouldn't I?" jeered Olson.
"Why not? Better tell me than wait for the police to third-degree you. If you're not in this killin' why not tell what you know? I've told my story."
"After they spotted you in the court-room," the farmer retorted. "An' how do I know you told all you know? Mebbe you're keepin' secrets, too."
Kirby took this without batting an eye. "An innocent man hasn't anything to fear," he said.
"Hasn't he?" Olson picked up a stone and flung it at a pile of rocks he had gathered fifty yards away. He was left-handed. "How do you know he hasn't? Say, just for argument, I do know somethin'. Say I practically saw Cunningham killed an' hadn't a thing to do with it. Could I get away with a story like that? You know darned well I couldn't. Wouldn't the lawyers want to know howcome I to be so handy to the place where the killin' was, right at the very time it took place, me who is supposed to have threatened to bump him off myself? Sure they would. I'd be tyin' a noose round my own neck."
"Do you know who killed my uncle?" demanded Lane point-blank. "Did you see it done?"