"I've told you more than any living soul besides myself and Findlay knows, Barrett. I've done this to square myself a little with you, to show you the provocation for my flare-up a little while ago. Consider my worried mind, consider—everything, and let it pass, will you, Ed?"
"I ought to have more sense than to go shooting at shadows," said Barrett, with regret as simply expressed as if it had been that way.
Nearing's gait was that of an old man as he mounted the steps and entered the house. Barrett groped about beneath the cedars until he found the pistol. He loaded the empty chamber, hung the weapon in its holster on the gate, and stood there revolving in his mind the confession he had heard from this man, in whom there seemed to be neither contrition nor remorse; only fear for the consequences of exposure. It seemed a strange moral bias for a man to adjust himself to, yet quite in keeping with the baronial ethics of the range.
Whatever it might be that Findlay held over him, it was not so grave that the president of the Elk Mountain Cattle Company could be justified in his treason to those who had trusted him, in one instance, at least, with their all, A man must be a coward in his soul who would go on living the life of a felon against his will, to shield himself from some rash, hot-headed deed.
Perhaps Nearing had pulled his gun on some other man as he had slung it on Barrett there at the gate. Murder might be the hold that Findlay held over him. But one man's word against another man's would not convict, especially when men held the relative positions
