"All--an' 'twill serve ya naught to plead or ask pardon. If you're a man, be one now."

Jeff's head whirled. Apparently, while he was in Ackerton, one or more of the Whitneys had met Dan and the boy had spun some fantastic tale.

Jeff looked over his captors again and saw only unyielding determination. He took a deep breath before he spoke.

"What did Dan tell you?"

"Enough," Barr grunted. "We had the truth from a babe's mouth."

"But--"

Dabb interrupted. "What made ye set your mind on the thought that a Whitney kil't Blazer?"

"Didn't you?"

"We do not pry into killin's," Barr said. "You erred when you did."

Another piece fitted into the puzzle. Evidently Dan had told whoever it was he had met that he and Jeff were out to avenge Johnny, and doubtless he'd said that Jeff was an officer. Jeff pondered Dabb's question and Barr's comment. It was possible, even probable, that only his killer knew who had shot Johnny. Whoever was guilty would be a fool if he was anything except close-mouthed about it.

"Leave us shoot him," Pete said nasally. "'Twill serve naught to do elsewise."

"I said we'd wait," Barr growled.

Jeff breathed a little easier. The Whitneys intended to shoot him, but not immediately and he wondered what they were waiting for and why.

Perhaps, as Barr had mentioned, they were too close to Smithville, and in order to remain unseen, perhaps they would wait until night to take him out. Maybe there were other reasons, but evidently he had a little time. Jeff took a shot in the dark.

"I'll be missed in Ackerton."

"We know," Barr muttered. "The boy said it all."

Jeff moistened dry lips with his tongue. His chance shot had ricocheted; whatever story Dan had concocted tied in with Jeff's trip to Ackerton.

He had to think his way out of this.

"People will be looking for me."

"They won't find you," Barr promised. "But could be they'll find us."

Jeff said pointedly, "Five against one?"

"You had a shotgun when you come in."

"And if I'd known who was waiting, I'd have come shooting. But you can all cheer up. Maybe those who look for me won't expect to need guns, and you can take them just like you did me. Maybe they won't even have guns.

Then you can shoot them down from ambush, _like you did Johnny Blazer_!"

Six pairs of eyes regarded him, and only Pete's remained unchanged. The rest shifted from deliberate purposefulness to cold fury, and Barr's face turned white. His lips tautened, and he bit his words off and spat them at Jeff.

"Ye lie!"

"I do not lie!"

Swiftly Barr closed the distance between them. His left hand snaked forward and his open palm struck Jeff's cheek. It was not a blow that a man might offer a worthy antagonist, but an insulting slap. Barr's eyes were glowing coals.

"Ye lie, policeman! Nary a man in the hills shot Blazer thataway!"

Jeff snarled back, "I don't lie and I can prove it!"

His face still white, Barr stepped back. He jerked his rifle to shooting position and lowered it reluctantly. Tense as stretched buckskin, he studied Jeff and snapped, "Say those words ag'in!"

"Johnny Blazer not only had no gun when he was shot, but whoever shot him was hiding when he did it!" Jeff p.r.o.nounced each word very slowly and very clearly, as though he were rehearsing a careful speech.

"How d'ye know he lacked aught to shoot back?"

"I--" Jeff thought of Bill Ellis and caught himself in time. "I saw someone who found him on my Ackerton trip. Johnny had no gun when they picked him up."

"Shut up!" Barr whirled furiously on his cousin who had started to speak. He said, more to himself than to anyone else, "Blazer's guns _was_ found in his cabin."

Jeff laughed tauntingly. "You hillbillies are brave men! Now all you have to do is admit that whoever shot Johnny was hiding in the brush."

Still furious, Barr regarded him steadily. "How do ya know that?"

"All I had to do was look."

"What'd ya look at?"

Jeff answered contemptuously, "I wouldn't expect any of you to think that far, but the bullet went clear through Johnny. There are enough trees and shrubs around so that it had to nick one of them. It's easy to figure the angle it came from."

Jeff held his breath. He himself had not thought of this until now, but it had to be right. Johnny Blazer was a woodsman. If whoever shot him had been in the open, Johnny would have seen him. Because he was unarmed, he probably would have died anyhow. But he would have died in the brush for he would at least have tried to escape.

Slow-thinking Dabb digested Jeff's statement and spoke solemnly. "Hit's right, Barr. None among us thought to look."

Barr was momentarily bewildered. "None saw the need."

"But need there might be."

"Go look, Dabb."

"I'll gao, too," Pete offered.

"Dabb's goin'."

Rifle in the crook of his arm, Dabb left the cabin. Jeff waited uneasily. Dabb's education might be a bit short in the conjugation of verbs and the more complex forms of mathematics, but it had taught him all about ballistics. When he came back he would know whether or not Johnny had been shot from ambush.

If he hadn't been--Jeff looked at Barr's stormy eyes and shuddered.

Twenty minutes later, Dabb returned. He came slowly, and somewhat shrunkenly, as though he had been both derided and belittled. He stood in the doorway, not looking at the rest, and when he spoke his voice was m.u.f.fled and reluctant.

"Hit's true, Barr. Hit's true enough. Whosoever shot Blazer was crouchin' in a little patch of evergreens a hunnert an' fifty steps from the road." He said, as though that was vastly important, "With my own eyes I saw his crouch. He broke some twigs the better to see."

Something came into the cabin with him, an unseen but heavy and mournful something that seemed, within itself, to rob everyone of the power of speech. The Whitneys looked sidewise at each other and Barr spoke slowly,