deserter 'fore I hooked up with ye! An' 'cause I tol' ye ye was a fool to go back, yer tryin' to shove it off onto me!"
"I wisht I was back in the service right now. An' if I done what's right I'd take you in."
The other laughed shortly: "Jest you try it onct an' see how fer ye'd git! Ye're 'fraid to try it. Ef ye did happen to fetch me in, what'd happen? I s'pose ye didn't kill none of the meat that's in the cache. An' I s'pose ye hain't helped sell none. Guess I didn't know what I was doin' when I tuk ye along to dicker with Swede Johnson down to No Luck, an' Tom Ashley, an' them contractors down on the river? An' I guess ye didn't help deliver none of it neither! An', of course, if ye tuk me in, I'd take my medicine an' shet up about it, wouldn't I? An' I wouldn't put up no holler fer them other fellers to testify that me an' you was pardners, would I? No, sure not! I'd jest shet up an' let ye git credit fer fetchin' in Brek Wiley. I tell ye, Shorty, yer in too deep. Ye'd git it worser'n what I would, 'cause on top of yer game-law sentence, ye'd git soaked good an' proper fer desertin'. They's more money in meat than they is in policin'. Wild game is as much mine an'
