On the day preceding that set for the execution, when Edith asked
her usual question, "Why did you do it?" Dennin answered, "'Tis
very simple. I was thinkin' - "
But she hushed him abruptly, asked him to wait, and hurried to
Hans's bedside. It was his watch off, and he came out of his
sleep, rubbing his eyes and grumbling.
"Go," she told him, "and bring up Negook and one other Indian.
Michael's going to confess. Make them come. Take the rifle along
and bring them up at the point of it if you have to."
Half an hour later Negook and his uncle, Hadikwan, were ushered
into the death chamber. They came unwillingly, Hans with his rifle
herding them along.
"Negook," Edith said, "there is to be no trouble for you and your
people. Only is it for you to sit and do nothing but listen and
understand."
Thus did Michael Dennin, under sentence of death, make public
confession of his crime. As he talked, Edith wrote his story down,
while the Indians listened, and Hans guarded the door for fear the
witnesses might bolt.
He had not been home to the old country for fifteen years, Dennin
explained, and it had always been his intention to return with
plenty of money and make his old mother comfortable for the rest of
her days.
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