"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 that away, 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 pa.s.sed.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed around to the door of the building and thrust it open. Another rush of birds swept past him, and he pa.s.sed 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, examining the 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 a.s.suring himself of the safety of revealing himself. Then, with measured gait, he made his way slowly toward his master.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A WAGER

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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude, 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 so come 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 sight which 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 G.o.d, thank G.o.d! 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 circ.u.mstances been changed, it would have been so, but one of the combatants was far too experienced a rough and tumble fighter for those circ.u.mstances 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 other finally "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.