"Did you have your rifle with you?"
"What would you carry if you was huntin' a coyote? A pocketful of
pebbles?"
"Can you account for your actions of today?"
"Yep. Crossed the nose of Hawkbill, went into Coon Valley, climbed that
to its head, swung behind Burned Mountain, crossed the Fordham Road and
come back by way of Fiddlefoot Crick."
"Can you prove all this?"
"Sure!" Al snorted. "I'll get you an affy-davit from a couple of crows
that saw me."
"That is your tobacco pouch?"
"I've already said it is."
"That pouch," and again Callahan's voice rose in triumph, "was found not
six feet from where Smoky fell!"
"So?"
"Al, I'd hate to have to get tough with you."
"Don't think you'd better try it."
"Loring heard you threaten to shoot Delbert."
"And I also," Loring Blade broke in, "heard Smoky threaten to shoot Al.
There's more than one side to this, Jack, and suppose you simmer down?"
"I'm in charge here!"
"But you're getting nowhere. Al, will you talk to me?"
"I'll tell you what I can, Lorin'."
"If you had anything to do with this, tell your story now. I don't hold
with shooting, but certainly I never held with Smoky Delbert. I, for
one, am willing to believe that, no matter how it happened or who he
met, Smoky raised his rifle first. I've known him a long while."
"But you never jailed him."
"Only because," the warden said, "I could never catch him. He was crafty
as he was mean. But he's still a human being."
"Could be some argument 'bout that," Al murmured. "Lorin', where was
Smoky shot?"
"Coon Valley," the warden answered reluctantly. "Almost beside those
three big sycamores near Glory Rock."
"Is he dead?"
"No, but he probably would be if he hadn't dragged himself to the
Fordham Road. Bill Layton, passing in his logging truck, found him and
took him into the hospital at Lorton."
"Is he goin' to die?"
"He's in a bad way."
"Has he talked?"
"Not yet."
"How about the bullet?"
"It went right through him; we couldn't find it."
"How do you know he was shot near them three sycamores in Coon Valley?"
"Bill told us where he picked him up. Jack and I went up there to see
what we could find and," the warden shrugged, "the back trail wasn't
hard to follow. Smoky was hit hard."
"And you found my tobacco pouch?"
"That's right, Al. It was within a few feet of where Smoky fell."
"How do you know he fell there?"
Loring Blade shrugged again. "He laid a while before he started to drag
himself out. There was plenty of evidence."
"Now here's a point, Lorin'. I've already said I was in Coon Valley
today. Suppose I had my pouch, couldn't I have lost it when I passed the
sycamores?"
"You could have."
"What time did you go up Coon Valley?" Jack Callahan broke in.
"'Twas before eight. I started early."
"Then you crossed back to the Fordham Road?"
"Don't try to snarl my words up," Al warned. "I've already said that I
went up Coon Valley to its head and crossed back of Burned Mountain to
the Fordham Road."
"But you heard no shooting?"