He promptly became absorbed in a strongly restrained excitement. He leaned forward and talked rapidly. He had forgotten Charlie's condition, he had forgotten everything but the danger threatening.

"Here, Charlie," he cried, "I'll tell you just all that happened after I left here, when you went out. Guess it's a long yarn, but I think you need to know it for your own safety."

Charlie leaned back in his chair and nodded.

"Go ahead," he said. Then he closed his eyes as Bill rushed into his narrative.

The big man told it all as far as it concerned his first meeting with the Setons, his subsequent visit to the saloon, and, afterwards, his meeting with Fyles. The only thing he kept to himself was his final meeting with Kate Seton.

At the end of this story Charlie reopened his eyes, and, to any one more observant than Big Brother Bill, it was plain that his condition had improved. A keen light was shining in them, a light of interest and perfectly clear understanding.

"Thanks, Bill," he said, "I'm glad you've told me all that." Then he rose from his chair, and his movements had become more certain, more definite. "Guess I'll get off to bed. It's no use discussing all this.

It can lead nowhere. Still, there is one thing I'd like to say before we quit. I'm glad, I'm so mighty glad you've come along out here to join me I can't just say it all to you. I'm ready to tumble headlong into any schemes you've got in your head. But there's things in my life I've got to work out in my own way. Things I can't and don't want to talk about. Maybe I'll often be doing things that seem queer to you. But I want to do 'em, and intend to do 'em. Drink is not one of 'em. You'll find I'm a night bird, too. But, again, my night wanderings are my own. You'll hear folks say all sorts of things about me. You'll see Fyles very busy. Well, it's up to you to listen or not.

All I say is don't fight my battles. I can fight them in my own way.

Two of us are liable to mess them all up. Get me? I live my life, and you can share as much in it as you like, except in that--well, that part of it I need to keep to myself. There's just one thing I promise you, Fyles'll never get me inside any penitentiary. I promise you that, sure, because I know from your manner that's the trouble in the back of your silly old head. Good night."

He pa.s.sed out of the room without giving the astonished Bill any opportunity to do more than respond to his "good night." Anyway, the latter had nothing else to say. He was too taken aback, too painfully startled at the tacit admission to all the charges he had been warned the people and police of Leaping Creek were making against his brother. What could he say? What could he do? Nothing--simply nothing.

He remained where he was against the table. He had forgotten his wet clothes. He had forgotten everything in the overwhelming nature of his painful feelings. His own beliefs, Kate's loyally expressed convictions, had been utterly negatived. It was all true. All painfully, dreadfully true. Charlie was not only a drunkard still, but the "crook" he was supposed to be. He was a whisky-runner. He was against the law. His ultimate goal was the penitentiary. Good G.o.d, the thought was appalling! This was where drink had led him. This was the end of his spoiled and wayward brother's career. What a cruel waste of a promising life. His good-natured, gentle-hearted brother. The boy he had always admired and loved in those early days. It was cruel, terrible. By his own admission he was against the law, a "crook,"

and--the penitentiary was looming.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ARM OUTREACHING

The morning was gloriously fine. It was aglow with the fulness of summer. Far as the eye could see the valley was bathed in a golden light which the myriad shades of green made intoxicating to senses drinking in this glory of nature's splendor. Leaping Creek gamboled its tortuous way through the heart of a perfect garden.

A veritable Eden thought Stanley Fyles--complete to the last detail.

But his thought was without cynicism. He had no time for cynicism.

Besides, the goal of his career lay yet before him.

His thought drifted further. His whole fate had suddenly become bound up in that valley. Nor was the fact without a certain irony. For him it was the valley of destiny. Within its s.p.a.cious confines lay the two great factors of life--his life--love and duty. They were confronting him. They were standing there waiting for him to possess himself of his victorious hold.

Stanley Fyles felt rather like a ticket-of-leave criminal, instead of a law officer, as he gazed out from the doorway of the frame hut, which formed the temporary quarters of the police, far out on the western reaches of the valley, five miles above the village of Rocky Springs. He knew he was there to prove himself. His mistakes, or his bad luck, of the past must be remedied before he could return to his superiors with a clean sheet. His hands were free, he knew. But in that freedom he was more surely a prisoner on parole than any man on his given word. He was pitting himself like the gambler against the final throw. It was all, or--ruin. To leave the valley with the work undone, with another mistake to his credit, and his present career must terminate.

Then there was that other side. That wonderful--other side. The human nature in him made the valley more surely his destiny than any charges of his superior officer. The woman was there. The Eve in his Eden.

More than all else the thought of her inspired him to the big effort of his life.

He was thinking of Kate Seton now as his gaze roamed at will over the ravishing summer tints. He was thinking wholly of her when his mind might well have been contemplating the terms of the despatches he had just written, the orders he had sent to his troopers, even the events and clues he had obtained on the previous night, pointing the work he had in hand.

A door opened and closed behind him. He was aware of it, but did not turn. A voice addressed him. It was the cold voice of Sergeant McBain.

"The men are saddled up, sir."

Fyles glanced around without changing his position.

"The despatches are on the table," he replied, with a sharp inclination of the head in the direction.

"Any other instructions, sir?"

Fyles thought a moment.

"Yes," he said at last. "When they return here it must be after dark.

The patrol and horses they bring with 'em are to be camped over at Winter's Crossing, five miles higher up the valley. This before they come in to report. That's all."

"Very good, sir."

Sergeant McBain departed, and presently the clatter of hoofs told the officer that the two troopers had ridden away. As they went he drew out a pipe and began to fill it.

When McBain re-entered the room Fyles bestirred himself. He turned back and flung himself into an uncomfortable, rawhide-seated, home-made chair, and lit his pipe. McBain took up a position at the small table which served the purpose of a desk.

McBain and his men had taken up their quarters here several weeks ago.

It was a mere shed, possibly an implement shed on an abandoned farm.

It was a frame, weather-boarded shanty with a dilapidated shingle roof. Quite a reasonable shelter till it chanced to rain. The handiness of the troopers had made it comparatively habitable with oddments of furnishing, and a part.i.tion, which left an inner room for sleeping quarters. There was a partial wooden lining covering the timbers supporting the roof, which was an open pitch, without any ceiling. There were several wooden brackets projecting from the walls, which had probably, at one time, been used to support harness. Now they served the purpose of carrying police saddles and uniform overcoats.

There was obviously no attempt at establishing a permanent station there. These men were, as was their custom, merely utilizing the chance finding as an added comfort in their strenuous lives.

Fyles lit his pipe, and, for some moments, smoked thoughtfully, while McBain's pen scratched a series of entries in his diary.

Fyles watched him through a cloud of smoke, and when his subordinate returned his pen to the home-made rack on the table, he began to talk.

"There's two things puzzling me about that tree, McBain," he said, following out his train of thought. "Your reckoning has justification all right. We saw enough last night for that. Besides, you have seen the same sort of thing several times before. It surely has a big play in the affairs of these 'runners.' But I can't get a focus of that play. Suppose that the tree is in some mysterious way a sort of means of communication, why is it necessary? And, why in thunder, when everybody knows who the boss of the gang is, don't they deal direct with him?"

Fyles smiled into the grim face of McBain, and sat back waiting to hear the Scot's reply. His keen face was alight with expectancy. He wanted this shrewd man's ideas as well as his facts obtained by observation.

The sergeant's face was obstinately set. He had already a.s.serted certain convictions about the old pine, and now he detected skepticism in his superior.

"Three times in the last two weeks I have seen the same figure in the shadow of that tree late at night. It hasn't needed any guessing to locate his ident.i.ty. Very well, starting with the supposition that the village folk are right, and Charlie Bryant is our man, then his movements about that tree at that hour of the night become more than suspicious. Especially since we know he's run a big cargo in lately.

But while I figger on that tree there's something else, as I've told you. I've tracked him into the neighborhood of the old Meeting House and back again to the tree. Now, I've seen this play three times, and would have seen the whole of it again last night if that d.a.m.ned coyote of a tenderfoot hadn't b.u.t.ted in. That's that, sir."

Fyles nodded. The older man's earnestness was not without its weight.

But to a man like Fyles, definite proof, or reasonable probabilities, were necessary. Clearing his throat, McBain went on.

"Let's come to another argument, sir," he said, setting himself with his arms on the table. "Every man or woman in the place reckons this tough, Charlie Bryant, runs the gang. They can lay their tongues to the names of the men who form the gang. Guess this is the list, and a certain one sure, knowing the men. There's Pete Clancy, Nick Devereux, both hired men to Miss Seton. There's Kid Blaney, hired to Bryant himself. There's Stormy Longton, the gambler and--murderer. Then there's another I believe to be Macaddo, the train hold-up, and the fellow they call "Holy" d.i.c.k. That's the gang with Bryant at their head, but there may be more of them. I've got the names indirectly from the village folk. But this is my point. Never a soul in the village has seen them at work. Never a soul has seen them buy, or sell, or handle, one drop of drink, except what they buy in the saloon to consume. The gang don't do one single thing to give itself away, and there's not a man or woman could give them away in the village, except from their talk when they're drunk."

The man was making his point, and Fyles remained interested.

"Now, this is the argument, an' you'll admit, sir, experience carries a lot of it out. Crooks are scared to death of each other, you know that, sir, better than I do. It's the basis of their methods. They've got to make safe. To do this they have to resort to schemes which hide their ident.i.ty. They'll trust each other engaged in the crime because all are involved. But they daren't trust those who're under no penalty. What do they do? They've got to blind the outside world, the police, and they do it by making a mystery. Now, in this case, the pine is the heart of their mystery. It must give the key to the cache.

It must lead us to getting the lot red-handed--running a cargo. That's what I know and feel, and it's up to you, sir, to show us the way.

I've worked on the lines you gave me, sir, and I've done all a man can do. I've had the whole village watched, and worked inquiry by a farmer outlying the valley. But now we're plumb at a deadlock till they run another cargo, which I'm calculating, at the rate liquor's consumed, they'll soon have to do. Maybe that'll give us a week or so for fixing our plans. I've watched each member of the gang, and we've got their movements written down here, from the time we missed that cargo on the trail. Maybe you'll read my notes on them."

Fyles took the diary the man held out.