Dead Man's Cache - Chapter 6 In Dead Man's Cache

"Why?"

She knew, but she wanted to see if he would tell a story which showed so
plainly his own ruthlessness.

He hesitated, but only for a moment.

"There was a man named Havens. He had a reputation as a bad man, and I
reckon he deserved it--if brand blotting, mail rustling, and shooting
citizens are the credentials to win that title. Hard pressed on account of
some deviltry, he drifted into this country, and was made welcome by those
living here. The best we had was his. He was fed, outfitted, and kept safe
from the law that was looking for him.

"You would figure he was under big obligations to the men that did this
for him--wouldn't you? But he was born skunk. When his chance came he
offered to betray these men to the law, in exchange for a pardon for his
own sneaking hide. The letter was found, and it was proved he wrote it.
What ought those men to have done to him, Miss 'Lissie?"

"I don't know." She shuddered.

"There's got to be law, even in a place like this. We make our own laws,
and the men that stay here have got to abide by them. Our law said this
man must die. He died."

She did not ask him how. The story went that the outlaws whom the wretched
man had tried to sell let him escape on purpose--that, just as he thought
he was free of them, their mocking laughter came to him from the rocks all
around. He was completely surrounded. They had merely let him run into a
trap. He escaped again, wandered without food for days, and again
discovered that they had been watching him all the time. Turn whichever
way he would, their rifles warned him back. He stumbled on, growing weaker
and weaker. They would neither capture him nor let him go.