Howard stopped and looked at the ranger before he spoke again. His
voice was rough and hoarse.

"Steve, I've seen men killed before, but I never saw anything so awful
as that. It was just like they had been struck by lightning for
suddenness. There was that devil scattering death among them and the
poor fellows crumpling up like rabbits. I tell you every time I think
of it the thing makes me sick."

The ranger nodded. He understood. The picture rose before him of a man
in a Berserk rage, stark mad for the moment, playing Destiny on that
lonely, moonlit hill. The face his instinct fitted to the
irresponsible murderer was that of Jed Briscoe. Somehow he was sure of
that, beyond the shadow of a doubt. His imagination conceived that
long ride back across the hills, the deep agonies of silence, the
fierce moments of vindictive accusation. No doubt for long the tug of
conscience was with them in all their waking hours, for these men were
mostly simple-minded cattlemen caught in the web of evil chance.

"That's how it was, Steve. In as long as it takes to empty a
Winchester, we were every one of us guilty of a murder we'd each have
given a laig to have stopped. We were all in it, all tied together,
because we had broke the law to go raiding in the first place.
Technically, the man that emptied that rifle wasn't any more guilty
than us poor wretches that stood frozen there while he did it. Put it
that we might shave the gallows, even then the penitentiary would bury
us. There was only one thing to do. We agreed to stand together, and
keep mum."