“Oh, please don’t, Bill; I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”

And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:

“’Deed you ain’t!

You never said no truer thing ’n that, you bet you.” And once he said: “Hear him beg! And yit if we hadn’t got the best of him and tied him he’d ’a’ killed us both. And what for? Jist for noth’n’. Jist because we stood on our rights — that’s what for. But I lay you ain’t a-goin’ to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put up that pistol, Bill.”

Bill says:

“I don’t want to, Jake Packard. I’m for killin’ him — and didn’t he kill old Hatfield jist the same way — and don’t he deserve it?”