“I’m not a fool, Mac. I know you didn’t set out to kill. If you ask me who started the gun play I can come pretty near giving his name. It’s a cinch you didn’t. One of your party has been talking, and the rumour is that you saved the herders. Anyhow, I don’t want to see you hang if I can help it.”
“Good of you,” derided the prisoner.
“But that’s what is going to happen if you don’t take my offer. You are going to trial first—and for the killing of Gilroy. You’ll be convicted. The Governor daren’t commute the sentence. Last call, Mac. Will you come through?”
“No, Aleck. I don’t admit I have anything to tell, but if I had I expect I’d keep my mouth shut.”
“Then you’ll hang.”
“Maybe I will; maybe I won’t,” answered Rowan coolly. “I can throw a cat through some of your evidence.”
“Don’t you think it. I’ve got you tied up in a net you can’t break. One of the herders will testify he heard you called ‘Mac’ just after the shooting.”
This was news to McCoy, but he did not bat an eye.
“Heard someone called Mac, you mean, Sheriff. There are quite a few Macs in Shoshone County.”
“Perhaps you don’t know that we have a witness who saw Falkner take a rifle out of the Triangle Dot bunk house a few hours before the raid.”