Like his friend, he sat down with a jolt. But he was smiling with anticipated triumph. He felt that his long experience as a salesman of dry goods had taught him how to reach the most vulnerable point in feminine armor. When it came to winning over Mrs. John Day to his side Allan Dy hadn’t an earthly chance with him.
But his smile slowly disappeared when the honorary secretary promptly rose to her feet.
Kate Seton turned and addressed herself to the president.
“I should like to put in a word of protest,” she began, while Allan Dy smiled and breathed his thankfulness that he was not to remain unsupported.
Instantly Billy Unguin broke in.
“Miss Seton, as secretary, is only ex-officio,” he cried.
Mrs. Day shot a withering glance at him.
“Miss Seton ishonorarysecretary.”
Allan Dy smiled more broadly as the president promptly nodded for Kate to proceed.
“I wish to protest against the old pine being felled,” she said, with some warmth. “It means disaster to Rocky Springs. There is the old legend. There is a curse on the felling of that tree.”
Her announcement was greeted by a murmur of approval from the women present, all except Mrs. Day. Dy beamed. But Kate was less pleased. She knew her president. She would always listen to the men, but when her own sex ventured on thinking for themselves she was liable to become restive.
The president glanced round the room with a swift challenge shining through her glasses, and her hard mouth closed tightly. Then she turned sharply to the woman at her side.
“I’m—I’m—astonished, Kate,” she cried, with difficulty suppressing her inclination to domineer. “The matter is most simple. It is said the best interests of the church are being jeopardized. There is the obvious necessity of altering the design of the roof of our beautiful building. You—whom I have always regarded as the essence of sanity, and my chief support in the arduous work which has been flung upon my shoulders, and which Mr. Unguin has been pleasedto say I’m not incapable of carrying out—you would sacrifice those interests for a lot of old Indian fool talk. I never would have believed it. Never! Say,” she turned to the others, and her eyes challenged the rest of the women, “This surely is a more serious matter than I thought. It must be looked into. I’ll look into it myself. If things are as Mr. Dy says, and it’s necessary, as Mr. Unguin points out, to cut down that tree to fix our church right—why, it’s going to be cut down. That’s all.”
She paused dramatically, but not long enough for anybody to interrupt her. Then, with a wave of her fat arm, which, to the women, became a threat, and to the men appeared to be something like the gesticulation of an animated sausage, she proceeded to terminate the debate.
“Those in favor ofmyproposition will signify the same in the usual manner,” she cried, with an air that brooked no sort of denial.
Up went every right hand in the room except those of Kate and Allan Dy. Then the “no’s” were taken. After which the result was announced with all the triumph of Mrs. Day’s domineering personality.
“Carried,” she cried.
Then she turned upon her secretary without the least sympathy or kindliness in her manner.
“You’ll enter that resolution in the minutes of the meeting,” she snapped.
Some half-hour later the quorum dissolved itself and trickled out of the oppressive precincts of Mrs. John Day’s highly polished parlor. The trickling process only lasted until the front door was gained. Then came a rush which had neither dignity nor politeness in it.
The two men set off for the saloon without attempting to disguise their purpose. The women hastily tripped off in the various directions whither they knew their favorite gossips would be found. Even Kate Seton failed to wait to exchange her usual few final words with the president. Truth to tell, she was both disgusted and depressed, and felt that somehow she had made a mess of things. She felt that she had contrived to turn an unimportant matter into something of the first magnitude. The question of felling the old pine hadmerely been one of those subjects for bickering between Billy and Allan Dy, who had never been known to agree on any subject, and now, through bringing their dispute before the committee, she knew that she had changed it into a question upon which the whole village would take sides. She only trusted that superstition would prevail, and the aged landmark would be left standing. She somehow felt doubtful, however, now that Mrs. Day had taken sides against her, and she hurried off to avoid further discussion.
Billy Unguin arrived at the saloon alone. Allan Dy’s course was diverted when he came within sight of his post office. As he reached the main trail of the village, he saw Inspector Fyles and Sergeant McBain riding down from the west, and the sight of them reminded him of his mail. So, leaving his friend to continue his way to the saloon alone, he went on to his little office, arriving in time to take down a telegraphic message from Amberley, and hand it, with his mail, to the police officer.
He rubbed his hands delightedly as he read the message over to himself a second time before placing it in its envelope. It was from the police headquarters, and its wording was full of significance in the light of last night’s events. Allan Dy was glad he had not gone on to the saloon.
The message was desperately curt.
“Wagon returned to Fort Allerton empty. Report. Jason.”
The postmaster had just placed the message with the officers’ mail when the two policemen entered. Fyles’s expression was morose, and his manner repellent. McBain was grim and silent.
“There’s a goodish mail, Mr. Fyles,” said Dy, without a trace of his real feelings, as he held out the bulky packet of letters. “That message has just come along over the wire.” He pointed at the tinted envelope enclosing the telegram.
While Fyles took his mail, McBain’s keen eyes were at work upon the letters spread out on the counter.
Fyles’s silent manner induced the curious official to go a step further.
“It’s from headquarters—Superintendent Jason,” he said, covertly watching the policeman’s face.
But the effect was not quite as satisfactory as he hoped. Fyles smiled.
“Thanks. I was expecting it.”
Then he turned away, and, followed by McBain, passed out of the building.
Once outside, however, it was quite another matter. The officer tore open the message and glanced at its contents. Then he passed it on to McBain with a brief comment.
“They’re wise,” he said. “Guess the band’s going to start playing—right away.”
McBain read the message. “We’re up against it, sir,” was his dry comment.
“Up against it, man?” Fyles cried, with sudden heat. “I tell you that’s very nearly our sentence. We’ve failed—failed, do you understand? And it’s not our first failure. Do you need me to tell you anything? We may just as well stand right here and cut off the badges of our various ranks. That’s what we may as well do,” he added bitterly. “There’s no mercy in Jason, and devilish little reason.”
But the Scot seemed to have very little sympathy for the other’s feelings. He seemed to care less for his rank than something else, and, in his next words, the real man shone out.
“I don’t care a curse for my rank, sir,” he exclaimed. “We’ve been bluffed and beaten like two babes in the game our lives are spent in playing. That’s what hurts me. Have you seen ’em, sir? All the way along as we came down here just now. We passed five or six women at the doors of their miserable shacks, and they smiled as they saw us. We passed four men, and their greeting was maddening in its jeer. Even the damned kids looked up and grinned like the apes they are. They’ve bluffed and beaten us, and I—hate ’em all.”
For some moments Stanley Fyles made no answer. He was gazing out down the village trail, and his eyes were on a small group of people standing some way off talking together. He had recognized them. They were Kate and Helen Seton, and with them was young Bryant, the ingenuous brother of Charlie. He guessed, as well he might, the subject of their talk. His failure. Was not everybody talking of it? And were not most of them, probably all of them, rejoicing? His bitterness grew, and at last he turned on his subordinate.
“Bluffed, but not beaten,” he said, with a fierce oath which did the Scot’s heart good. “We’re not beaten,” he reiterated, “if only Jason will leave us alone, and trust us further. I’ve got to convince him. I’ve got to tell him all that’s happened, and I’ve got to persuade him to leave us here. We’ve got to go on. He can recommend my resignation, he can do what he damn well pleases, so long as he leaves me here to finish this work. I tell you, I’ve got to break up this gang of hoodlums.”
McBain’s eyes glittered.
“That’s how I feel, sir.”
“Feel? We’ve just got to do it—or clear out of the country. Man, I’d give a thousand dollars to know how they got possession of our signals. Those shots, that bluffed us, were fired by some of the gang. How did they learn it? It’s been done by spying, but—say, get on back to camp, and prepare the report of last night. Hold it up for me, and I’ll enclose a private letter to Mr. Jason. I’ll be along later.”
McBain nodded.
“You fix it, sir, so we don’t get transferred back. We need another chance badly. Maybe they won’t bluff us next time.”
He swung himself into the saddle and rode away, while Fyles, linking his arm through the faithful Peter’s reins, strolled leisurely on down the track toward the group which included Kate Seton.
As he drew near they ceased talking, and watched his approach. Their attitude was such that Fyles could not refrain from a half-bitter, half-laughing comment as he came up.
“It doesn’t take much guessing to locate the subject of your talk, Miss Kate,” he cried.
Kate’s dark eyes had no smile in them as she replied to his challenge.
“How’s that?” she inquired, while Bill and Helen watched his face.
Fyles shrugged.
“You stopped talking when you saw I was coming your way.” He laughed. “However, I guess it’s only to be expected. The boys bluffed us all right last night. It was asmartish trick. Still,” he added thoughtfully, “it’s given us an elegant lever—when the time comes.”
Kate made no answer. She was studying the man’s face, and there was a certain regret and even pity in the depths of her regard. Bill and Helen had no such feelings for him. They were frankly rejoiced at his failure.
Helen replied. “That’s so, Mr. Fyles,” she said, almost tartly, “but I guess that lever needs to help them into your traps to do any real good.”
The officer’s smile was quite good-humored, in spite of the sharpness of the girl’s reminder. What he really felt he was not likely to display here.
“Sure,” he said. “The spider weaves his web and it’s not worth a cent if the flies aren’t foolish enough to make mistakes. The spider is a student of winged insect nature, and he lays his plans accordingly. The flies always come to him—in the end.”
Bill laughed good-humoredly.
“That’s dandy,” he cried. “There’s always fool flies around. But sometimes that spider’s web gets all mussed up and broken. I’ve broke ’em myself—rather than see the fool things caught.”
Kate’s eyes were turned on the great bulk of Charlie’s brother. Even Helen looked up with bright admiration for her lover.
Fyles’s gaze was leveled directly into the innocent looking blue eyes laughing into his.
“Yes, I dare say you and other folks have broken those things up, often—but the spiders thrive and multiply. You see, when one net is busted they—make another. They don’t seem to starve ever, do they? Ever seen a spider dead of starvation?”
“Can’t say I have.” Bill shook his great head. “But maybe they’d get a bad time if they set their traps for any special flies—or fly.”
Fyles raised his powerful shoulders coldly.
“Guess the spider business doesn’t go far enough,” he said, talking directly at Big Brother Bill. “When I spoke of that lever just now, maybe you didn’t get my meaning quite clearly. That gang, who ran the liquor in last night, put themselves further up against the law than maybe they think.It was an armed attack on the police, which is quite a different thing to just simple whisky-running. Get me? The police are always glad when crooks do that. It pays them better—when the time comes.”
Bill had no reply. He suddenly experienced the chill of the cold steel of police methods. A series of painful pictures rose up before his mind’s eye, which held his tongue silent. Helen quickly came to his rescue.
“But who’s to say who did it?” she demanded.
Fyles smiled down into her pretty face.
“Those who want to save their skins—when the time comes.”
It was Helen’s turn to realize something of the irresistible nature of the work of the police. Somehow she felt that the defeat of the police last night was but a shadowy success after all, for those concerned in the whisky-running. Her thought flew at once to Charlie, and she shuddered at the suggested possibilities in Fyles’s words.
She turned away.
“Well, all I can say is, I—I hate it all, and wish it was all over and done with. Everybody’s talking, everybody’s gloating, and—and it just makes me feel scared to death.” Then she turned again to Bill. “Let’s go on,” she cried, a little desperately. “We’ll finish our shopping, and—and get away from it all. It just makes me real ill.”
She waved a farewell to Kate and moved away, and Bill, like some faithful watchdog, followed at her heels. Fyles looked after them both with serious, earnest eyes. Kate watched them smiling.
Presently Fyles turned back to her.
“Well?” he demanded.
Kate’s eyes were slowly raised to his.
“Well?” she echoed. “So——”
She broke off. Her generous nature checked her in time. She had been about to twit him with his defeat. She sympathized with his feelings at the thought of his broken hopes.
“Better say it,” said Fyles, with a smile, in which chagrin and tenderness struggled for place. “You were going to say I have been defeated, as you told me I should be defeated.”
“I s’pose I was.” Kate glanced quickly up into his face,but the feeling she beheld there made her turn her eyes away so that they followed Bill and Helen moving down the trail. “Women are usually ungenerous to—an adversary.” Then her whole manner changed to one of kindly frankness. “Do you know my feelings are sort of mixed about your—defeat——”
“Not defeat,” put in Fyles. “Check.”
Kate smiled.
“Well, then, ‘check.’ I am glad—delighted—since you direct all your suspicions against Charlie. Then I am full of regret for you, because—because I know the rigor of police discipline. In the eyes of the authorities you have failed—twice. Oh, if you would only attack this thing with an open mind, and not start prejudiced against Charlie. I wish you had never listened to local gossip. If that were so I could be on your side, and—and with true sportsmanship, wish you well. Besides that, I might be able to tell you things. You see, I learn many things in the village that others do not—hear.”
Fyles was studying the woman’s face closely as she spoke. And something he beheld there robbed his defeat of a good deal of its sting. Her words were the words of partisanship, and her partisanship was for another as well as himself. Had this not been so, had her partisanship been for him alone, he could well have abandoned himself to an open mind, as she desired. As it was, she drove him to a dogged pursuit of the man he was convinced was the real culprit.
“Don’t let us reopen the old subject,” he said, with a shade of irritability. “I have evidence you know nothing of, and I should be mad indeed if I changed my objective at your desire, for the sake of the unsupported belief and regard you have for this man. Let us be content to be adversaries, each working out our little campaign as we think best. Don’t waste regrets at my failures. I know the price I have to pay for them—only too well. I know, and I tell you frankly, but only you, that my career in the police may terminate in consequence. That’s all right. The prestige of the force cannot be maintained by—failures. The prestige of the force is very dear to me. If you have anything to tell me that may lead me in the direction of the real culprit, then tell me. If not—why let us be friends until—until my workhas made that impossible. I—I want your friendship very much.”
Kate’s eyes were turned from him. The deep light in them was very soft.
“Do you?” she smiled. “Well—perhaps you have it, in spite of our temporary antagonism. Oh, dear—it’s all so absurd.”
Fyles laughed.
“Isn’t it? But, then, anything out of the ordinary is generally absurd, until we get used to it. Somehow, it doesn’t seem absurd that I want your—friendship. At least, not to me.”
Kate smiled up into his face.
“And yet it is—absurd.”
The man’s eyes suddenly became serious.
“Why?”
Kate shrugged.
“That’s surely explained. We are—antagonists.”
Again that look of impatience crossed the man’s keen features. As he offered no reply, Kate went on.
“About the armed attack on the police. You said it made all the difference. What is the difference?”
“Anything between twelve months in the penitentiary and twenty years—when the gang is landed.”
“Twenty years!” The woman gave a slight gasp.
The man nodded.
“And do you know the logical consequence of it all?” he inquired.
“No.” Kate’s eyes were horrified.
“Why, when next we come into conflict there will be shooting if these people are pressed. They will have to shoot to save themselves. Then there may be murder added to their list of—delinquencies. These things follow in sequence. It is the normal progress of those who put themselves on the side of crime.”
Charlie Bryant urged his horse at a dangerous pace along the narrow, winding cattle tracks which threaded the upper reaches of the valley. He gave no heed to anything—the lacerating thorns, the great, knotty roots, with which the paths were studded, the overhanging boughs. His sole object seemed to be a desperate desire to reach his destination.
His horse often floundered and tripped, the man’s own clothes were frequently ripped by the thorns, and the bleeding flesh beneath laid bare, while it seemed a miracle that he successfully dodged the threatening boughs overhead.
There was a hunted look in his dark eyes, too. It was a look of concern, almost of terror. His gaze was alert and roving. Now, he was looking ahead, straining with anxiety, now he was turning this way and that in response to the mysterious woodland sounds which greeted his ears. Again, with a nervous jerk, he would rein in his horse and sit listening, with eyes staring back over the way he had come, as though fearing pursuit.
Once he thrust a hand into an inside pocket as though to reassure himself that something was there which he valued and feared to lose, and with every movement, every look of his eyes, every turn of the head, he displayed an unusual nervousness and apprehension.
At last his horse swept into the clearing of the hidden corral, and he reined it up with a jerk, and leaped from the saddle. Then he stood listening, and the apprehension in his eyes deepened. But presently it lessened, and he moved forward, and flung his reins over one of the corral fence posts. Every woodland sound, every discordant note from the heart of the valley was accounted for in his mind, so he hurried toward the flat-roofed hut, that mysterious relic of a bygone age.
He thrust the creaking door open and waited while the flight of birds swarmed past him. Then he made his way within. Once inside he paused again with that painful look of expectancy and fear in his eyes. Again this passed,and he went on quickly to the far corner of the room, and laid his hands upon the wooden lining of the wall. Then he abruptly seemed to change his mind. He removed his hands, and withdrew a largish, morocco pocketbook from an inner pocket.
It was a rather fine case, bound in embossed silver, and ornamented with a silver monogram. For some moments he looked at it as though in doubt. He seemed to be definitely making up his mind, and his whole attitude suggested his desire for its safety.
While he was still gazing at it a startled look leaped into his eyes, and his head turned as though at some suspicious sound. A moment later he reached out and slid the wooden lining of the wall up, revealing the cavity behind it, which still contained its odd assortment of garments. Without hesitation he reached up to a dark jacket and thrust the pocketbook into an inner pocket. Then, with a swift movement, he replaced the paneling and turned about.
It was the work of a moment, and as he turned about his right hand was gripping the butt of a revolver, ready and pointing at the door.
“Charlie!”
The revolver was slipped back into the man’s pocket, and Charlie Bryant’s furious face was turned toward the window opening, which now framed the features of his great blundering brother.
“You, Bill?” he cried angrily. “What in hell are you doing here?”
But Bill ignored the challenge, he ignored the tone of it. His big eyes were full of excitement.
“Come out of there—quick!” he cried sharply.
Charlie’s dark eyes had lost some of their anger in the inquiry now replacing it.
“Why?” But he moved toward the doorway.
“Why? Because Fyles is behind me. I’ve seen him in the distance.”
Charlie came around the corner of the building with the door firmly closed behind him. Bill left the window and moved across to his horse, which was standing beside that of his brother. Charlie followed him.
Neither spoke again until the horses were reached, andBill had unhitched his reins from the corral fence. Then he turned his great blue eyes, so full of trouble, upon the small figure beside him, and he answered the other’s half-angry, half-curious challenge with a question.
“What’s this place?” he demanded. Then he added, “And what’s that cupboard in there?” He jerked his head in the direction of the hut, “I saw you close it.”
Charlie seemed to have recovered from the apprehension which had caused him to obey his brother unquestioningly. There was an angry sparkle in his eyes as he gazed steadily into Bill’s face.
“That’s none of your damn business,” he said, in a low tone of surly truculence. “I’m not here to answer any questions till you tell me the reason why you’ve had the impertinence to hunt me down. How did you know where to find me?”
Just for one moment a hot retort leaped to the other’s lips. But he checked his rising temper. His journey in pursuit of his brother had been taken after deep reflection and consultation with Helen. But the mystery of that hut, that cupboard, did more to keep him calm than anything else. His curiosity was aroused. Not mere idle curiosity, but these things, this place, were a big link in the chain of evidence that had been forged about his brother, and he felt he was on the verge of a discovery. Then there was Fyles somewhere nearby in the neighborhood. This last thought, and all it portended, destroyed his feelings of resentment.
“I s’pose you think I followed you for sheer curiosity. Guess I might well enough do so, seeing we bear the same name, and that name’s liable to stink—through you. But I didn’t, anyway. I came out here to tell you something I heard this morning, and it’s about—last night. Fyles says that the result of last night is that the gang, their leader, is now wanted for an armed attack on the police, and that the penalty is—anything up to twenty years in the penitentiary.”
Charlie’s intense regard never wavered for one moment.
“Who told you I was here?” he demanded angrily.
“No one.”
There was a sting in the sharpness of Bill’s reply. The big blue eyes were growing hot again.
“Then how did you know where to find me?” Charlie’s deep voice was full of suppressed fury.
“I didn’t know just where to find you,” Bill protested, with rising heat. “The kid told me you’d gone up the valley, but didn’t say where. I set out blindly and stumbled on your horse’s tracks. I chanced those tracks, and they led me here. Will that satisfy you?”
Charlie’s eyes were still glittering.
“Not quite. I’ll ask you to get out of my ranch. And remember this, you’ve seen me at this shack, and you’ve seen that cupboard. If you’d been anybody but my brother I’d have shot you down in your tracks. Fyles—anybody. That cupboard is my secret, and if anyone learns of it through you—well, I’ll forget you’re my brother and treat you as though you were—Fyles.”
A sudden blaze of wrath flared up in the bigger man’s eyes. But, almost as it kindled, it died out and he laughed. However, when he spoke there was no mirth in his voice.
“My God, Charlie,” he cried, holding out his big hands, “I could almost take you in these two hands and—and wring your foolish, obstinate, wicked neck. You stand there talking blasted melodrama like a born actor on the one-night stands. Your fool talk don’t scare me a little. What in the name of all that’s sacred do you think I want to send you to the penitentiary for? Haven’t I come here to warn you? Man, the rye whisky’s turned you crazy. I’m here to help, help, do you understand? Just four letters, ‘help,’ a verb which means ‘support,’ not ‘destroy.’”
Charlie’s cold regard never wavered.
“When will you clear out of—my ranch?”
Bill started. The brothers’ eyes met in a long and desperate exchange of regard. Then the big man brought his fist down upon the high cantle of his saddle with startling force.
“When I choose, not before,” he cried fiercely. “Do you understand? Here, you foolish man. I know what I’m up against. I know what you’re up against, and I tell you right here that if Fyles is going to hunt you into the penitentiary he can hunt me, too. I’m not smart, like you, on these crook games, but I’m determined that the man who lags you will get it good and plenty. I sort of hate you,you foolish man. I hate you and like you. You’ve got grit, and, by God, I like you for it, and I don’t stand to see you go down for any twenty years—alone. If Fyles gets you that way, you’re the last man he ever will get. Damn you!”
Charlie drew a deep breath. It was a sigh of pent feeling. He averted his gaze, and it wandered over the old corral inside which the wagon with its hay-rack was still standing, though its position was changed slightly. His eyes rested upon it, and passed on to the hut, about which the birds were once more gathering. They paused for some silent moments in this direction. Then they came back to the angry, waiting brother.
“I wish you weren’t such a blunderer, Bill,” he said, and his manner had become peevishly gentle. “Can’t you see I’ve got to play my own game in my own way? You don’t know all that’s back of my head. You don’t know a thing. All you know is that Fyles wants to send me down, by way of cleaning up this valley. I want him to—if he can. But he can’t. Not as long as the grass grows. He’s beaten—beaten before he starts. I don’t want help. I don’t want help from anybody. Now, for God’s sake, can’t you leave me alone?”
The tension between the two was relaxed. Bill gave an exclamation of impatience.
“You want him to—send you down?”
The warp of this man was too much for his common sense.
“If he can.”
Charlie smiled now. It was a smile of perfect confidence. Bill threw up his hands.
“Well, you’ve got me beat to a rag. I——”
“The same as I have Fyles. But say——”
Charlie broke off, and his smile vanished.
“Maybe I’m a crook. Maybe I’m anything you, or anybody else likes to call me. There’s one thing I’m not. I’m no bluff. You know of that cupboard in that shack. The thought’s poison to me. If any other man had found it, he wouldn’t be alive now to listen to me. Do you understand me? Forget it. Forget you ever saw it. If you dream of it, fancy it’s a nightmare and—turn over. Bill, I solemnly swear that I’ll shoot the man dead, on sight, who gives thataway, or dares to look inside it. Now, we’ll get away from here.”
He sprang into the saddle and waited while his brother mounted. Then he held out his hand.
“Do you get me?” he asked.
Bill nodded, and took the outstretched hand in solemn compact.
“What you say goes,” he said easily. “But your threat of shooting doesn’t worry me a little bit.”
He gathered up his reins and the two men rode out of the clearing.
The last sound of speeding hoofs died away, and the clearing settled once more to its mysterious quiet. Only the twittering of the swarming birds on the thatched roof of the hut disturbed the silence, but, somehow, even their chattering voices seemed really to intensify it.
Thus a few minutes passed.
Then a breaking of bush and rustling of leaves gave warning of a fresh approach. A man’s head and shoulders were thrust forward, out from amid the boughs of a wild cherry bush.
His dark face peered cautiously around, and his keen eyes took in a comprehensive survey of both corral and hut. A moment later he stood clear of the bush altogether.
Stanley Fyles swiftly crossed the intervening space and entered the corral. He strode up to the wagon and examined it closely, studying its position and the wheel tracks, with a minuteness that left him in possession of every available fact. Having satisfied himself in this direction, he passed out of the corral and went over to the hut.
The screaming birds promptly protested, and flew once more from their nesting quarters in panicky dudgeon. Fyles watched them go with thoughtful eyes. Then he passed around to the door of the building and thrust it open. Another rush of birds swept past him, and he passed within. Again his searching eyes were brought into play. Not a detail of that interior escaped him. But ten minutes later he left the half-lit room for the broad light of day outside—disappointed.
For a long time he moved around the building, examiningthe walls, their bases and foundations. His disappointment remained, however, and, finally, with strong discontent in his expression, and an unmistakable shrug of his shoulders, he moved away.
Finally, he paused and gave a long, low whistle. He repeated it at intervals, three times, and, after awhile, for answer, the wise face of Peter appeared from among the bushes. The creature solemnly contemplated the scene. It was almost as if he were assuring himself of the safety of revealing himself. Then, with measured gait, he made his way slowly toward his master.
The wild outbreak of excitement in Rocky Springs died out swiftly. After all, whisky-running was a mere traffic. It was a general traffic throughout the country. The successful “running” of a cargo of alcohol was by no means an epoch-making event. But just now, in Rocky Springs, it was a matter of more than usual interest, in that the police had expressed their intention of “cleaning” the little township up. So the excitement at their outwitting. So, more than ever, the excited rejoicing became a cordial expression of delight at the fooling of the purpose of a generally hated act.
This sentiment was expressed by O’Brien before his bar full of men, among whom were many of those responsible for the defeat of the police. He addressed himself personally to Stormy Longton with the certainty of absolute sympathy.
“Guess when the boys here have done with the p’lice they’ll have the prohibition law wiped out of the statute book, Stormy,” he said, with a knowing wink. “Ther’s fellers o’ grit around this valley, eh? Good boys and gritty. Guess it ain’t fer us to open our mouths wide, ’cep’ to swallow prohibition liquor, but there’ll be some tales to tell of these days later, eh, Stormy? An’,” he added slyly, “guess you’ll be able to tell some of ’em.”
The badman displayed no enthusiasm at the personality. He considered carefully before replying. When he did reply, however, he set the saloonkeeper re-sorting some of his convictions, mixing them with a doubt which had never occurred to him before.
“Sure,” said Stormy, with a contemptuous shrug, “and I guess you, with the rest, will do some of the listenin’. You’re all wise guys hereabouts—mostly as wise as the p’lice. Best hand the company a round of drinks. I’ve got money to burn.”
He laughed, but no amount of questioning could elicit anything more of interest to the curious minds about him.
It was on the second day after the whisky-running that Kate Seton was returning home after an arduous morning in the village. She was feeling unusually depressed, and her handsome face was pathetically lacking in the high spirits and delight of living usual to it. It was not her way to indulge in the self-pitying joys of depression. On the contrary, her buoyancy, her spirit, were such as to attract the weaker at all times to lean on her for support.
She was tired, too, physically tired. The day had been one of sweltering heat, one of those sultry, oppressive days, which are fortunately few enough in the brilliant Canadian summer.
As she reached the wooden bridge across the river she paused and leaned herself against the handrail, and, propping her elbow upon it, leaned her chin upon the palm of her hand and abandoned herself to a long train of troubled thought. It may have been chance; it may have been that her thought inspired the direction of her gaze. It may have been that her attitude had nothing whatsoever to do with her thought. Certain it is, however, that her brooding eyes were turned, as they were so often turned, upon that little ranch house perched so high up on the valley slope.
She remained thus for a while, her eyes almost unseeing in their far-away gaze, but, later, without shifting her attitude, they glanced off to the right in the direction of the old pine, rearing its vagabond head high above the surrounding wealth of by no means insignificant foliage.
It was a splendid sight, and, to her imagination, it looked the personification of the rascality of the village she had socome to love. Look at it. Its trunk, naked as the supports of a scarecrow, suggesting mighty strength, indolence and poverty. There, above, its ragged garments—unwholesome, dirty, like the garments of some tramping, villainous, degraded loafer. And yet, with it all, the old tree looked so mighty, so wise.
To her it seemed like some ages-old creature looking down from its immense height, and out of its experience of centuries, upon a world of struggling beings, with the pitying contempt of a wisdom beyond the understanding of man. It seemed to her the embodiment of evil, yet withal of wisdom, too. And somehow she loved it. Its evil meant nothing to her, nothing more than the evil of the life amid which she lived. It was no mere passing sentiment with her. Her nature was too strong for the softer, womanish sentiments, stirred in a moment and as easily set aside. For her to yield her affections to any creature or object, was to yield herself to a bondage more certain than any life of slavery. To think of this valley without——
Her thoughts were abruptly cut short as the sound of a cry reached her from the direction of her house.
She turned, and, for a moment, stared hard and alertly in the direction whence it came. Her ears were straining, too. In a moment she became aware of a faint confusion of sounds which she had no power of interpreting. But somehow they conveyed an ominous suggestion to her keen mind.
She bestirred herself. She set off at a run for her home. The distance was less than a hundred yards, and she covered it quickly. As she came nearer the sounds grew, and became even more ominous. They proceeded from somewhere in the direction of the barn behind the house.
She darted into the house, and, after one comprehensive glance around the sitting room, where she found the rocker upset, and a china ornament fallen from its place on the table, and smashed in fragments upon the floor, as though someone had knocked it down in a hasty departure, she snatched a revolver from its holster upon the wall, and rushed out of the house through the back door.
She was not mistaken. Her hearing had accurately conveyed to her the meaning of those sounds.
Nevertheless she was wholly unprepared for the sightwhich actually greeted her as she turned the angle of the barn where the building faced away from the house.
She stood stock still, her big eyes wide with wonder and swift rising anger. Twisting, struggling, writhing, cursing, two men lay upon the ground held in a fierce embrace, much in the manner of two wildcats. Beyond them, huddled upon the ground, her face covered with her hands, a picture of abject terror, crouched her younger sister, Helen.
All this she beheld at the first glance. Then, keeping clear of the fighters she darted around to the terrified girl. With a cry Helen scrambled to her feet and clung to her sister’s arm, and began to pour out a stream of hysterical thankfulness.
“Oh, stop them,” she cried. “Oh, thank God, thank God! Stop them, or they’ll kill each other. Pete will kill him. He——”
But Kate had no time for such feminine weakness. She dragged the girl away out of sight, and left her while she returned to the affray.
Once in full view of it she made no effort to stop it. She stood looking on with the critical eye of an interested spectator, but her hand was grasping her revolver, nor was her forefinger far from the trigger of it.
The men rolled this way and that, while deep-throated curses came up from their midst with a breathless, muttered force. But through the tangle of sprawling bodies and waving limbs Kate’s quick eyes discovered all she required to satisfy herself. She saw no real life and death struggle here. Maybe, had the circumstances been changed, it would have been so, but one of the combatants was far too experienced a rough and tumble fighter for those circumstances to mature.
The man on top at the moment had the other in a vice-like grip by the right wrist, keeping the heavy revolver, which the underman had in his hand, from becoming a serious danger. With the other hand he was dealing his adversary careful, well-timed smashes upon his bruised and battered face, with the object of warding off a fierce attack of strong, yellow teeth.
The man on top had his adversary’s measure to a fraction. He was dealing with him almost as he chose, and the onlooker knew that it could only be moments before the otherfinally “squealed,” and dropped the murderous weapon from his hand.
Down came the fist, a great, white fist, with a soggy sound upon the man’s pulpy features, its force increased a hundred per cent. by the resistance of the hard ground on which his adversary lay. A fierce curse was the response, and a wild upward slash at the big face above. Then the big fist went up again.
“Drop it, you son-of-a-moose,” Kate heard, in Big Brother Bill’s fiercest tones. “Drop it, or I’ll kill you!”
Down came his fist with a fearful smash on the other’s gaping mouth.
A splutter of oaths was his reply, and an even greater effort to throw the white man off.
But the effort was unavailing. Then Kate saw something happen. The big white man changed his tactics. He desisted quite suddenly from belaboring his victim. He made no attempt to defend himself. He reached out his disengaged hand and added a second grip upon the man’s revolver arm. Then, with a terrific jolt, he flung himself backwards, so that he was left in a kneeling position upon the other’s middle. Then, in a second, with an agility absolutely staggering, he was on his feet. The next moment the other was jerked to his feet with his revolver arm twisted behind his back and nearly dislocated.
With a frantic yell of agony the half-breed’s hand relaxed its grip upon his revolver, and the weapon fell to the ground. The fight was over. With a mighty throw Pete Clancy was hurled headlong, and fell sprawling upon the ground at the foot of the barn wall, and his impact was like the result of a shot from a catapult.
“Lie there, you dirty dog!” cried Big Brother Bill, in a fury of breathless indignation. “That’ll maybe learn you a lesson not to get drinking rot gut, and, if you do, not to insult a white girl. You damnation nigger, for two beans I’d kick the life out of you where you lay.”
The man was scrambling to his feet, glaring an eternity of hatred at his white victor.
“Did he insult—Helen?”
Bill swung around with almost ludicrous abruptness. He had been utterly unaware of Kate’s presence.
He stared. Then, with a rush of passionate anger——
“Yes; but by God, he’ll think some before he does it again.”
Kate’s eyes were coldly commanding.
“Go around to Helen, and—take that gun,” she said authoritatively. “Leave Pete to me.”
“Leave him——?” Bill’s protest remained uncompleted.
“Do as I tell you—please.”
“But he’ll——”
Again Kate cut him short.
“Please!” She pointed in the direction of the house.
Bill was left with no alternative but to obey. He moved away, but his movements were grudging, and he looked back as he went, ready to hurl himself to Kate’s succor at the slightest sign.
Ten minutes later Kate entered the sitting room. Her handsome face was pale, and her eyes were shining. The spirit of the woman was stirred. There was no fear in her—only a sort of hard resentment that left her expression one of cold determination.
Helen ran to her at once. But, for perhaps the first time in her life, she encountered something in the nature of a rebuff. Kate looked straight into her sister’s eyes as she flung herself into a chair, and laid her loaded revolver upon the table.
“Tell me about it. Just the plain facts,” she said, and waited.
Bill started up from his place in the rocker, but Kate signed him to be silent.
“Helen can tell me,” she said coldly.
Helen, leaning against the table, glanced across at Bill. Her sister’s attitude troubled her. She felt the resentment underlying it. She was at a loss to understand it. After a moment’s hesitation she began to explain. Nor could she quite keep the sharp edge of feeling out of her tone.
“It was my fault,” she began. “At least, I s’pose it was. I s’pose I was doing a fool thing interfering, but I didn’t just think you’d mind, seeing you’d ordered him to do work he hadn’t done. You see, he hadn’t touched those potatoes you’d told him to dig. He’s been drinking instead.”
Suddenly her sense of humor got the better of her resentful feelings, and she began to laugh.
“Well, I had to go and be severe with him. I tried to bully him, and stamped my foot at him, and—and called him a drunken brute. I took a chance. Being drunk, he might have proposed to me. Well, he didn’t this time. It was far worse. He told me to go—to hell, first of all. But, as I didn’t show signs of obeying him, he got sort of funny and tried to kiss me.”
“The swine!” muttered Bill, but was silenced by a look from Helen’s humorous eyes.
“That’s what I thought—first,” she said. Then, her eyes widening: “But he meant doing it, and I got scared to death. Oh, dear, I was frightened. Being a coward, I shouted for help. And Bill responded like—like a great angry steer. Then I got worse scared, for, directly Pete saw Bill coming, he pulled a gun, and there surely was murder in his eye.”
She breathed a deep sigh, and her eyes had changed their expression to one of delight and pride.
“But he hadn’t a dog’s chance of putting Bill’s lights out. He hadn’t, true. Say, Kate, Bill was just like—like a whirlwind. Same as Charlie said. He was so quick I hardly know how it happened. Bill dropped Pete like a—a sack of wheat. He—he was on him like a tiger. Then I was just worse scared than ever, and—and began to cry.”
The girl’s mouth drooped, but her eyes were laughing. Then, as Kate still remained quiet, she inquired:
“Wasn’t I a fool?”
Kate suddenly looked up from the brown study into which she had fallen. Her big eyes looked straight across at Bill, and she ignored Helen’s final remark.
“Thanks, Bill,” she said quietly. And her last suggestion of displeasure seemed to pass with her expression of gratitude. “I’m glad you were here, and”—she smiled—“you can fight. You nearly killed him.” Then, after a pause: “It’s been a lesson to me. I—shan’t forget it.”
“What have you—done to him?” cried Helen suddenly.
But Kate shook her head.
“Let’s talk of something else. There’s things far more important than—him. Anyway, he won’t dothatagain.”
She rose from her seat and moved to the window, where she stood looking out. But she had no interest in what she beheld. She was thinking moodily of other things.
Bill stirred in his chair. He was glad enough to put the episode behind him.
“Yes,” he said, taking up Kate’s remark at once. “There certainly are troubles enough to go around.” He was thinking of his scene of the previous day with his brother. “But—but what’s gone wrong with you, Kate? What are the more important things?”
“You haven’t fallen out with Mrs. Day?” Helen put in quickly.
Kate shook her head.
“No one falls out with Mrs. Day,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Day does the falling out. It isn’t only Mrs. Day, it’s—it’s everybody. I think the whole village is—is mad.” She turned back from the window and returned to her seat. But she did not sit down. She stood resting her folded arms on its back and leaned upon it. “They’re all mad. Everybody. I’m mad.” She glanced from one to the other, smiling in the sanest fashion, but behind her smile was obvious anxiety and trouble. “They’ve practically decided to cut down the old pine.”
Bill sat up. He laughed at the tone of her announcement.
But Helen gasped.
“The old pine?” She had caught some of her sister’s alarm.
Kate nodded.
“You can laugh, Bill,” she cried. “That’s what they’re all doing. They’re laughing at—the old superstition. But—it’s not a laughing matter to folks who think right along the lines of the essence of our human natures, which is superstition. The worst of it is I’ve brought it about. I told the meeting about a stupid argument about the building of the church which Billy and Dy had. Billy wants the tree for a ridge pole, because the church is disproportionately long. Well, I told the folks because I thought they wouldn’t hear of the tree being cut. But Mrs. Day rounded on me, and the meeting followed her like a flock of sheep. Still, I wasn’t done by that. I’ve been canvassing the village since, and, would you believe it, they all say it’s a good job to cut thetree down. Maybe it’ll rid the place of its evil influence, and so rid us of the attentions of the police. I tell you, Billy and Dy are perfect fools, and the folks are all mad. And I’m the greatest idiot ever escaped a home for imbeciles. There! That’s how I feel. It’s—it’s scandalous.”
Bill laughed good-naturedly.
“Say, cheer up, Kate,” he cried. “You surely don’t need to worry any. It can’t hurt you. Besides——.” He broke off abruptly, and, sitting up, looked out of the window. “Say, here comes Fyles.” He almost leaped out of his seat.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Kate sharply. Then she looked around at her sister, who had moved away from the table.
Bill laughed again in his inconsequent fashion.
“Matter?” he cried. “Nothin’s the matter, only—only——. Say, did you ever have folks get on your nerves?”
“Plenty in Rocky Springs,” said Kate bitterly.
Bill nodded.
“That’s it. Say, I’ve just remembered I’ve got an appointment that was never made with somebody who don’t exist. I’m going to keep it.”
Helen laughed, and clapped her hands.
“Say, that’s really funny. And I’ve just remembered something I’d never forgotten, that’s too late to do anyway. Come on, Bill, let’s go and see about these things, and,” she added slyly, “leave Kate to settle Fyles—by herself.”
“Helen!”
But Kate’s remonstrance fell upon empty air. The lovers had fled through the open doorway, and out the back way. Nor had she time to call them back, for, at that moment, Fyles’s horse drew up at the front door, and she heard the officer leap out of the saddle.
“Have you made your peace with—headquarters?”
Kate and Stanley Fyles were standing out in the warm shade of the house. The woman’s hand was gently caressing the velvety muzzle of Peter’s long, fiddle face. It was a different woman talking to the police officer from the bitter, discontented creature of a few minutes ago. For the time, at least, all regrets, all thoughts of an unpleasant natureseemed to have been lost in the delight of a woman wholesomely in love.
As she put her question her big eyes looked up into the man’s keen face with just the faintest suspicion of raillery in their glowing depths. But her rich tones were full of a genuine eagerness that belied the look.
The man was good to look upon. The strength of his face appealed to her, as did the big, loose shoulders and limbs, as strength must always appeal to a real woman. Her love inspired a subtle tenderness, even anxiety.
“I hope so, but—I don’t know yet.”
Fyles made no attempt to conceal his doubts. Somehow the official side of the man was becoming less and less sustained before this woman, who had come to occupy such a big portion of his life.
“You mean you’ve sent in your report, and are now awaiting the—verdict?”
Fyles nodded.
“Like so many of the criminals I have brought before the courts,” he said, bitterly.
“And the chances?”
“About equal to those of a convicted felon.”
The smile died out of Kate’s eyes. They were full of regretful sympathy.
“It’s pretty tough,” she said, turning from him. “It isn’t as if you had made a mistake, or neglected your duty.”
“No, I was beaten.”
The man turned away coldly. But his coldness was not for her.
“Is there no hope?” Kate asked presently, in a low tone.
Fyles shrugged.
“There might be if I had something definite to promise for the future. I mean a chance of—redeeming myself.”
Kate made no answer. The whole thing to her mind seemed impossible if it depended upon that. The thought of this strong man being broken through the police system, for no particular fault of his own, seemed very hard. Harder now than ever. She strove desperately to find a gleam of light in the darkness of his future. She would have given worlds to discover some light, and show him the way. But one thing seemed impossible, and he—well, he only made it harder. Hisvery decision and obstinacy, she considered, were his chief undoing.
“If you could reasonably hold out a prospect to them,” she said, her dark eyes full of thought—strong and earnest thought. “Can’t you?”
She watched him closely. She saw him suddenly straighten himself up, throwing back his powerful shoulders as though to rid himself of the burden which had been oppressing him so long.
He drew a step nearer. Kate’s heart beat fast. Then her eyes drooped before the passion shining in his.
“Maybe you don’t realize why I am here, Kate,” he said, in a low thrilling voice, while a warm smile grew in his eyes. “You see, weeks ago I made a mistake, a bad mistake—just such as I have made here. The liquor was run under my nose, while I—well, I just stood around looking on like some fool babe. That liquor was—for this place. After that I asked the chief to give me a free hand, and to allow me to come right along, and round this place up. My object was twofold. I knew I had to make good, and—I knew you were here. Guess you don’t remember our first meeting? I do. It was up on the hillside, near the old pine. I’ve always wanted to get back here—ever since then. Well, I’ve had my wish. I’m here, sure. But I’ve not made good. The folks, here, have beaten me, and you—why, I’ve just contrived to make you my sworn adversary. Failure, eh? Failure in my work, and in my—love.”
For an instant the woman’s eyes were raised to his face. She was trembling as no physical fear could have made her tremble. Peter nuzzled the palm of her hand with his velvety nose, and she quickly lowered her gaze, and appeared to watch his efforts.
After a moment’s pause the man went on in a voice full of a great passionate love. All the official side of him had gone utterly. He stood before the woman he loved baring his soul. For the moment he had put his other failures behind him. He wanted only her.
“I came here because I loved you, Kate. I came here dreaming all those dreams which we smile at in others. I dreamed of a life at your side, with you ever before me to spur me on to the greater heights which I have thoughtabout, dreamed about. And all my work, all my striving, was to be for you. I saw visions of the days, when, together, we might fill high office in our country’s affairs, with an ambition ever growing, as, together, we mounted the ladder of success. Vain enough thought, eh? Guess it was not long before I brought the roof of my castle crashing about my ears. I have failed in my work a second time, and only succeeded in making you my enemy.”
Kate’s eyes were shining. A great light of happiness was in them. But she kept them turned from him.
“Not enemy—only adversary,” she said, in a low voice.
The man shook his head.
“It is such a small distinction,” he said bitterly. “Antagonists. How can I ever hope that you can care for me? Kate, Kate,” he burst out passionately, “if you would marry me, none of the rest would matter. I love you so, dear. If you would marry me I should not care what the answer from headquarters might be. Why should I? I should then have all I cared for in the world, and the world itself would still be before us. I have money saved. All we should need to start us. My God, the very thought of it fills me with the lust of conquest. There would be nothing too great to aspire to. Kate, Kate!” He held his arms out toward her in supplication.
The woman shook her head, but offered no verbal refusal. The man’s arms dropped once more to his sides, and, for a moment, the silence was only broken by the champing of Peter’s bit. Then once more the man’s eyes lit.
“Tell me,” he cried, almost fiercely. “Tell me, had we not come into conflict over this man, Bryant, would—would it—could it have been different?” Then his voice grew soft and persuasive. “I know you don’t dislike me, Kate.” He smiled. “I know it, and you must forgive my—vanity. I have watched, and studied you, and—convinced myself. I felt I had the right to hope. The right of every decently honest man. Our one disagreement has been this man, Bryant. I had thought maybe you loved him, but that you have denied. You do not? There is no one else?”
Again Kate silently shook her head. The man was pressing her hard. All her woman’s soul was crying out for her to fling every consideration to the winds, and yield to the impulseof the love stirring within her. But something held her back, something so strong as to be quite irresistible.
The man went on. He was fighting that last forlorn hope amid what, to him, seemed to be a sea of disaster.
“No. You have told me that before,” he said, almost to himself. “Then why,” he went on, his voice rising with the intensity of his feelings. “Why—why——? But no, it’s absurd. You tell me you don’t—you can’t love me.”
For one brief instant Kate’s eyes were shyly raised to his. They dropped again at once to the brown head of the horse beside her.
“I have told you nothing—yet,” she said, in a low voice.
The man snatched a brief hope.
“You mean——?”
Kate looked up again, fearlessly now.
“I mean just what I say.”
“You have told me nothing—yet,” the man repeated. “Then you have something—to tell me?”
Kate nodded and pushed Peter’s head aside almost roughly.
“The man I can care for, the man I marry must have no thought of hurt for Charlie Bryant in his mind.”
“Then you——”
Kate made a movement of impatience.
“Again, I mean just what I say—no more, no less.”
But it was Fyles’s turn to become impatient.
“Bryant—Charlie Bryant? It is always Charlie Bryant—before all things!”
Kate’s eyes looked steadily into his.
“Yes—before even myself.”
The man returned her look.
“Yet you do not love him as—I would have you love me?”
“Yet I do not love him, as you would have me love you.”
The man thrust out his arms.
“Then, for God’s sake, tell me some more.”
The insistent Peter claimed Kate once more. His long face was once more thrust against her arm, and his soft lips began to nibble at the wrist frill of her sleeve. She turned to him with a laugh, and placed an arm about his crested neck.
“Oh, Peter, Peter,” she said smiling, and gently caressing the friendly creature. “He wants me to tell him some more.Shall I? Shall I tell him something of the many things I manage to learn in this valley? Shall I try and explain that I contrive to get hold of secrets that the police, with all their cleverness, can never hope to get hold of? Shall I tell him, that, if only he will put Charlie out of his mind, and leave him alone, and not try to fix this—this crime on him, I can put him on the track of the real criminal? Shall I point out to him the absurdity of fixing on this one man when there are such men as O’Brien, and Stormy Longton, and my two boys, and Holy Dick, and Kid Blaney in the place? Shall I? Shall I tell him of the things I’ve found out? Yes, Peter, I will, if he’ll promise me to put Charlie out of his mind. But not unless. Eh? Not unless.”
The man shook his head.
“You make the condition impossible,” he cried. “You have faith in that man. Good. I have overwhelming evidence that he is the man we are after. Until he is caught the whisky-running in this place will never cease.”
Kate refused to display impatience. She went on talking to the horse.
“Isn’t he obstinate? Isn’t he? And here am I offering to show him how he can get the real criminals.”
Fyles suddenly broke into a laugh. It was not a joyous laugh. It was cynical, almost bitter.
“You are seeking to defend Bryant, and yet you can, and will, put me on the track of the whisky-runners. It’s farcical. You would be closing the door of the penitentiary upon your—friend.”
Kate’s eyes flashed.
“Should I? I don’t think so. The others I don’t care that for.” She flicked her fingers. “They must look to themselves. I promise you I shall not be risking Charlie’s liberty.”
“I’ll wager if you show me how I can get these people, and I succeed—you will.”
The angry sparkle in the woman’s eyes died out, to be replaced with a sudden light of inspiration.
“You’ll wager?” she cried, with an excited laugh. “You will?”
The policeman nodded.
“Yes—anything you like.”
Kate’s laugh died out, and she stood considering.
“But you said my conditions were—impossible. You will leave Charlie alone until you capture him running the whisky? You will call your men off his track—until you catch him red-handed? You will accept that condition, if I show you how you can—make good with your—headquarters?”
The man suddenly found himself caught in the spirit of Kate’s mood.
“But the conditions must not be all with you,” he cried, with a short laugh. “You are too generous to make it that way. If I accept your conditions, against my better judgment, will you allow me to make one?”
“But I am conferring the benefit,” Kate protested.
“All of it? What about your desire to protect Bryant?”
Kate nodded.
“What is your condition?”
Fyles drew a deep breath.
“Will you marry me after I have caught the leader of the gang, if he be this man, Bryant? That must be your payment—for being wrong.”
In a moment all Kate’s lightness vanished. She stared at him for some wide-eyed moments. Then, again, all in a moment, she began to laugh.
“Done!” she cried. “I accept, and you accept! It’s a wager!”
But her ready acceptance of his offer for the first time made the police officer doubt his own convictions as to the identity of the head of the gang.
“You are accepting my condition because you believe Bryant is not the man, and so you hope to escape marrying me,” he said almost roughly.
“I accept your condition,” cried Kate staunchly.
Slowly a deep flush mounted to the man’s cheeks and spread over his brow. His eyes lit, and his strong mouth set firmly.
“But you will marry me,” he cried, with sudden force. “Whatever lies behind your condition, Kate, you’ll marry me, as a result of this. The conditions are agreed. I take your wager. I shall get the man Bryant, and he’ll get no mercy from me. He’s stood in my way long enough. I’m going to win out, Kate,” he cried; “I know it, I feel it. Because Iwant you. I’d go through hell itself to do that. Quick. Tell me. Show me how I can get these people, and I promise you they shan’t escape me this time.”
But Kate displayed no haste. Now that the wager was made she seemed less delighted. After a moment’s thought, however, she gave him the information he required.
“I’ve learned definitely that on Monday next, that’s nearly a week to-day, there’s a cargo coming in along the river trail, from the east. The gang will set out to meet it at midnight, and will bring it into the village about two o’clock in the morning. How, I can’t say.”
Fyles’s desperate eyes seemed literally to bore their way through her.