"Don't try obstinancy with me, Nichols," I said sternly, "for you are either going to talk, or die. I'll give you one chance, and one only. I despise your kind, and will kill you with pleasure. Now answer me—who told you of Major Harwood's death?"
"I have said already; the message was brought to Lewisburg by one of Ned Cowan's men."
"Yes, so you did; but you never received it at Lewisburg. Oh, yes, I know something myself. The fact is you never came here tonight from Lewisburg, now did you? Do you want me to tell you where you came from? Well, it was the mountains the other side of the Green Briar—from old Ned Cowan's camp. There is where you learned of Harwood's death, and of the attack on Fox. Now are you ready to talk to me? Oh! you are! Very well, who sent you—Cowan?"
I ran my gun muzzle hard into his ribs, and he nodded sullenly, his lips drawn back in a snarl. All the soft palaver had vanished, and he had become a cowed brute.
"I thought so; you belong yourself to the Cowan gang?"
"Not—not in their deeds of blood and violence," he protested. "The calls of my church compel me to minister to my scattered flock—"
