When Mrs. Stovall came in with his supper he told her hoarsely that he wanted to see Matson at once on important business.
The sheriff drove his car in the moonlight out from Wagon Wheel. Ruth took him in to see Falkner.
“Send for Jennings and Mrs. Stovall. She’s a notary, ain’t she?” said the convalescent.
Ruth’s heart beat fast. “Yes. She was one when she was postmistress. Her term hasn’t run out yet.”
“All right. Get her. I want to make a sworn statement before witnesses.”
Matson took down the statement as Falkner dictated:
I want to tell some facts about the Bald Knob sheep raid that did not come out at the trial of Rowan McCoy. When the party was made up to ride on that raid I wasn’t included. They left me out because I had a grudge at Tait. But I horned in. I followed the boys for miles, and insisted on going along. McCoy objected. He said the party was going to drive off the sheep and not to do any killing. I promised to take orders from him. He laid out a plan by which we could surprise the camp without bloodshed, and made it plain there was to be no shooting. Afterward he went over it all very carefully again, and we agreed not to shoot.
I lost my head when we was crawling up on the camp and shot at the wagon. That was the first shot fired. Tait came out and began shooting at us. Two or three of us were shooting. I don’t know who killed him. Gilroy ran out of the wagon to escape. McCoy hollered to stop shooting, and ran forward. I must have been crazy. I shot and killed Gilroy.
Then McCoy ran to protect the herders. He wrestled with me for the gun to keep me from shooting. None of the other boys had anything to do with the killing of Gilroy except me.
It was so dark that nobody knew whether McCoy or I shot Gilroy. McCoy protected me, and said we were all to blame, since we had come together. He never did tell who did the shooting. I looked at his gun a little later, and saw that he had not fired a shot from first to last.