Madison examined nipple and muzzle; one barrel had been
discharged. It was true! The gun dropped from his hand.
"Look here, old man," said Breckenridge, with a darkening face, "there's
bin no foul play here. Thar's bin no hiring of men, no deputy to do this
job. YOU did it fair and square--yourself?"
"Yes, by God!" burst out Madison Clay in a hoarse voice. "Who says I
didn't?"
Reassured, yet believing that Madison Clay had nerved himself for
the act by an over-draught of whiskey, which had affected his memory,
Breckenridge said curtly, "Then wake up and 'lite' out, ef ye want me to
stand by you."
"Go to the corral and pick me out a hoss," said Madison slowly, yet not
without a certain dignity of manner. "I've suthin' to say to Salomy
Jane afore I go." He was holding her scribbled note, which he had just
discovered, in his shaking hand.
Struck by his kinsman's manner, and knowing the dependent relations
of father and daughter, Breckenridge nodded and hurried away. Left to
himself, Madison Clay ran his fingers through his hair, and straightened
out the paper on which Salomy Jane had scrawled her note, turned it
over, and wrote on the back:--
You might have told me you did it, and not leave your ole father to
find it out how you disgraced yourself and him, too, by a low-down,
underhanded, woman's trick! I've said I done it, and took the blame
myself, and all the sneakiness of it that folks suspect.
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