"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen done thet job. An' now we cum t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an' last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th' blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a passell of letters writ to Lem--old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done hit--but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid shut--don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they won't wait--they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an' leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut cums o' laywayers an' traitors--an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own life er some tuther body's life--I kilt 'em a fighten'--I never laywayed--thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject--damn nigh enough, hain't hit?" Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted upward. CHAPTER XVI THE MURDER PARTNERS A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked, physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height, and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.