"You oughter hev made sure afore ye teched the trigger, Copenny, that he _war_ the revenuer!" cried the young fellow, Alvin Holvey, with a sudden burst of petulance, despite the tragic realization expressed in his quivering face. "Ye're sech a dead shot that ye could hev spared a minute ter make sure of the revenuer, afore _he_ could hev pulled a shooting-iron." The man who had fired the fatal shot had seemed hitherto stunned, silent and motionless. Now he exclaimed in self-justification: "Why, I war sure, plumb sure, I thought. We-uns chased that man Dean clear to Briscoe's house last night--his horse went lame and he got lost from his posse--but when I fund he hed sheltered with Briscoe, we-uns went into the empty hotel ter wait and watch fur him ter go. Not knowin' how many men Briscoe hev got thar, we-uns didn't want ter tackle the house. An' whilst at the hotel the Briscoes' tellyfun-bell rung--ye know it's on a party line with the hotel connection--an' I tuk down the thing they call the receiver an' listened. An' that's jes' the way Briscoe planned it: ter send the revenuer down an hour by sun with the dog-cart an' his fine mare. Shucks! Ef Briscoe war minded ter step into Frank Dean's shoes, he hev jes' hed ter take what war savin' up fur the revenuer, that's all!" Once more he relapsed into silent staring at the brink, balked, dumfounded, and amazed. Suddenly he seemed to respond to some inward monition of danger, of responsibility. "I be enough of a dead shot ter stop all that dad-burned talk of yourn!" he drawled in a languid, falsetto, spiritless voice, but with an odd intimation of a deadly intention. "Ye both done the deed the same ez ef ye hed pulled the trigger; ye holped ter plan it, an' kem along ter see it done an' lend a hand ef needed. Ye both done the deed the same ez me--that's the law, an' ye know it. That is sure the law in Tennessee." "Waal, now, Phineas Copenny, 't warn't right nor fair ter we-uns ter clumsy it up so," protested the young mountaineer. "Ef it hed been the revenuer, I'd hev nare word ter say. I'd smack my lips, fur the deed would taste good ter me, an' I'd stand ter it. But this hyar Mr. Briscoe--why, we-uns hev not even got a gredge agin him." "No, nor nobody else that ever I hearn of. Mr. Briscoe war a plum favor_ite_, far an' nigh," said old Jubal Clenk, the eldest of the party. "But shucks!" he continued, with a change of tone and the evident intention of preserving harmony among the conspirators. "'Twar jes' an accident, an' that's what it will pass fur among folks ginerally. Mr. Briscoe's mare skeered an' shied an' backed off'n the bluff--that air whut the country-side will think. Whenst his body is fund his head will be mashed ter a jelly by the fall, an' nobody kin say he kem otherwise by his death--jes' an accident in drivin' a skittish horse-critter."