"I dunno what's goin' tuh happen," the old man said sadly. "I do know one thing though, an' that's jest this. Becky wasn't kilt by no accident, an' if Bryant says she was he's as big a damn liar as Mort." Penny looked at Gimlet. She laid one hand on his skinny forearm below the rolled-back shirtsleeve. Softly she said, "Gimlet, have you any idea why Rebecca was shot?" Gimlet dropped the gaze of his one eye to the floor and shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. "Tell me," said Penny. "I want to know." Gimlet nodded slowly. "I know," he said. "That's what made me afeared fer you." He stopped there, and Penny said: "Go on." Gimlet drew a deep breath as if, in telling the girl what he knew, he were leaping into a bottomless pit filled with icy water. "I--I'm the one that got her kilt." Penny waited, knowing that when he enlarged on the amazing statement it would be vastly modified. "I couldn't o' helped it, though. I dunno where Becky learned that a pack o' killers from all parts o' the state was bein' brought tuh jobs here, so's they c'd hide while they stole hosses an' cattle from outside the Basin. She knowed it though, an' sent me with a note intuh Captain Blythe in Red Oak. I gave him the note an' left, like she tol' me tuh do. I dunno how the crooks here learned about it, but they sure as hell was ready when the Texas Rangers rid through the Gap. They wiped 'em out aplenty." "But there'll be other Rangers coming to see what happened to them," said Penny. "An' alibis an' lies aplenty waitin' fer them same. By the time the next Rangers git here, there won't be a damn thing fer 'em tuh see. The stolen cattle'll have new brands an' the crooks that's hidin' here will be hidin' where they cain't be found. No one'll know nothin' about nothin'." Penny nodded slowly, realizing the truth in what old Gimlet said. "If it's knowed by the crooks that you know what's goin' on, they'll do tuh you the same as they done tuh Becky. As fer me, I'm expectin' tuh git kilt most any time." "You said there wasn't anything you could put your finger on, Gimlet. It seems to me you know just about all there is to know." "Can't prove nothin' though; 'sides that, I dunno where Bryant stands." "I wish I knew that," said Penny thoughtfully. "One thing's sure. As long as he's here, there won't no harm come tuh you. Let him git killed though, as I know damn well he's expectin', an' God knows what'll happen. 'Nuther thing I dunno is who is bossin' things!" "Vince?" Gimlet shook his head. "Too cussed fer any man tuh take orders from." "Mort?" Again the old man's head moved slowly from one side to the other. "I don't think so. We c'n figger Jeb an' Wallie out as a matter o' course. Maybe they know what's goin' on, maybe they don't. Jeb ain't the brains of a jackass an' Wallie ain't hardly ever home." "Has he returned from town?"