I ask you what became of that girl between the
time you knifed Goodell and this morning?"
Hicks started at mention of Goodell. His heavy face settled into
stubborn lines. He blinked under MacRae's steady look. Of a sudden he
sprang to his feet. I do not know what his intention may have been, but
he got little chance to carry out any desperate idea that took form in
his brain, for MacRae knocked him back on his haunches with a single
blow of his fist.
"Answer me," he shouted, "or by the Lord! I'll make you think hell is a
pleasure-garden compared to this sand-bar."
"Kick a few uh his ribs out uh place for a starter," Piegan coolly
advised. "That'll he'p him remember things."
Yet for all their threats Hicks obstinately refused to admit that he had
ever seen Lyn Rowan. What his object was in denying knowledge we knew he
possessed did not transpire till later. He knew the game was lost, so
far as he was concerned, and he was mustering his forces in a last
effort to save himself. And MacRae's patience snapped like a frayed
thread before many minutes of futile query.
"Get me a rope off one of those pack-horses, Sarge," he snapped.
I brought the rope; and I will brazenly admit that I should not have
balked at helping decorate the limb of a cottonwood with those two
red-handed scoundrels.
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