Finally, Bruce took his knee from his chest and got up. Smaltz pulled himself to his feet and stood uncertainly.
"Well--I suppose it's jail." There was sullen resignation in his voice.
Bruce stopped the machinery without answering. Then he folded his arms and leaned his broad shoulders against the rough boards of the power-house while, eying Smaltz, he considered. A year ago he would have killed him--he would have killed him begging on his knees, but taking a human life either makes a man callous or sobers him and the remorse which had followed the tragedy in the cabin was a sensation Bruce never wanted to experience again.
Penitentiaries were made for men like Smaltz--but in a country of long and difficult distances, with the lax courts and laws indifferently enforced, to put Smaltz where he belonged was not so simple as it might sound. It required time and money; Bruce had neither to spare.
It was so still in the power-house that the ticking of the dollar watch hanging on a nail sounded like a clock. Smaltz shifted feet nervously. At last Bruce walked to the work-bench and took a carpenter's pencil from a box and sharpened it. He smoothed out some wrapping paper then motioned Smaltz to sit down.
"I want you to write what you told me--exactly--word for word. Write it in duplicate and sign your name."
Consternation overspread Smaltz's face. A verbal confession to save himself from being electrocuted was one thing, to put it in black and white was quite another. He hesitated. Bruce saw the mutiny in his face; also the quick, involuntary glance he gave toward a monkey-wrench which lay on the end of the work-bench within his reach.
Rage burned up in Bruce again.
"Don't you know when you've got enough?" He stepped forward and removed the heavy wrench from Smaltz's reach. "I'll give you just one minute by the watch there to make up your mind. You'd better write, for you won't be able when I'm through!"
They measured each other, eye to eye again. Each could hear the breathing of the other in the silence while the watch ticked off the seconds. An over-sanguine pack-rat tried to scramble up the tar-paper covering on the outside and squeaked as he fell back with a thud, but the face of neither man relaxed. Smaltz took the full limit of the time. He saw Bruce's fingers work, then clinch. Suddenly he grinned--a sheepish, unresentful grin.
"I guess you're the best man," He slouched to the bench and sat down.
He was still writing when Banule came, breathing hard and still dripping from his frigid swim. He stopped short and his jaw dropped at seeing Smaltz. He was obviously disappointed at finding him alive.