“Who in Mexico wants to accept Haight’s offer?” he snarled. “I’ve lived a wolf, by some folks’ way of it. I reckon I’ll die one. But I’m no coyote. Make another crack like that and there’ll be trouble right here in Cell Fifteen.”
Roswell grinned. To the prosecuting attorney he carried back word that his proffer had been rejected. No compromise would be considered which did not include McCoy.
The hotel where Roswell and his friends stayed became active as a hive of bees. From it cow-punchers and cattlemen issued to make a quiet canvass of the leading citizens of Shoshone County. The result was that Haight and his political friends were besieged for twelve hours by taxpayers who insisted on a compromise being arranged. The long-distance telephone called him up three times that night to carry protests against his policy.
“What’s the idea, Haight?” asked a prominent irrigation engineer in charge of a project under construction. “We stand for the law. We want to see every man punished that was in the sheep raid. But there’s no object in starting trouble with the cattlemen, and that’s what it will amount to if you hang Rowan McCoy. Tait and Gilroy weren’t blameless. They knew what they were going up against. They didn’t have to cross the dead line and ruin the ranchmen on the Fryingpan. A prison sentence all around hits me as about right. I’ve talked with lots of people, and that’s the general sentiment.”
Just before Rogers was to be brought into the courtroom for trial Haight gave way. He had a long conference with the lawyers for the defense and the presiding judge. As a result of this it was announced that the prisoners would plead guilty.
Before sunset each of the five had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
CHAPTER XXII
FALKNER TALKS
WITH the news that Rowan would not have to pay with his life, Ruth’s anxiety took on another phase. Their happiness had come to grief. It was likely that the tentative separation caused by her anger at his unfaithfulness would prove to be a final one. But her imperative need was to demand the truth about the sheep raid killings. At the bottom of her heart was still a residuum of deep respect for him. It was impossible to believe that this clean, lean-flanked Westerner with the steadfast eyes was a common murderer who had stolen up at night to compass the death of his enemy from cover. Moreover, there was a reason—a vital, urgent, compelling one—why she must think the best she could of the man she had married.