"'T warn't _him_!" gasped the youngest--hardly more than a boy indeed.
His broad, beardless face was ghastly white, and his lips trembled as
violently as his shaking hand.
"Lawd! That was _Edward Briscoe_! What a pity, _sure_! It war a plumb
mistake, Copenny," plained an elder man, whose rifle had not been fired.
There was a regretful cadence in his voice akin to tears, and he held his
long, ragged red beard in one hand as he peered down into the
unresponsive depths.
"You oughter hev made sure afore ye teched the trigger, Copenny, that he
_war_ the revenuer!" cried the young fellow, Alvin Holvey, with a sudden
burst of petulance, despite the tragic realization expressed in his
quivering face. "Ye're sech a dead shot that ye could hev spared a minute
ter make sure of the revenuer, afore _he_ could hev pulled a
shooting-iron."
The man who had fired the fatal shot had seemed hitherto stunned, silent
and motionless. Now he exclaimed in self-justification: "Why, I war sure,
plumb sure, I thought.
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