The Law-Breakers

At the sound of the approaching horseman she looked up with a start. She had no expectation of a visitor, she had no desire for one just now. Nevertheless, when she discovered the officer’s identity, she displayed no surprise, and more interest, than might have been expected.

She did not disguise from herself the feelings this man inspired. On the contrary she rather reveled in them, especially as, in a way, just now, all her actions must be in direct antagonism to his efforts.

She felt that a battle, a big battle, must be fought and won between them. It was a battle to be fought out openly and frankly. It was her determination that this man should not wrong himself by committing a great wrong upon Charlie Bryant.

Kate was very busy at the moment Fyles rode up. She was intent upon fitting a piece of lace, obviously too small, upon a delicate white garment of her sister’s, which was obviously too big.

For a moment, as she did not look up, Fyles sat leaning forward in the saddle with his arms resting upon its horn. He was watching her with a smiling interest which was not without anxiety.

“There’s surely not a dandier picture in the world than a girl sitting in the shade sewing – white things,” he said at last, by way of greeting.

Kate glanced up for the briefest of smiling glances. Then her dark head bent over her sewing again.

“And there’s surely nothing calculated to upset things more than a man butting in, where the same girl’s fragment of brain is worrying to fit something that doesn’t fit anyway.”

“Meaning me?”

Fyles smiled in his confident way.

“Seeing there’s no one else around, I must have meant some other fellow.”

Kate laid the lace aside, and looked up with a sigh. A gentle amusement shone in her fine dark eyes.

“Have you ever tried to make things fit that – just won’t?” she demanded.

Fyles shook his head.

“Maybe I can help, though,” he hazarded.

“Help?” Kate’s amusement merged into a laugh. “Say, when it comes to fitting things that don’t fit, two heads generally muss things right up. All my life I’ve been trying to fit things that don’t fit, and I find, if you’re to succeed, you’ve got to do it to yourself, and by yourself. It always takes a big lot of thinking which nobody else can follow. Maybe your way of thinking is different from other folks, and so they can’t understand, and that’s why they can’t follow it. Now here’s a bit of lace, and there’s a sleeve. The lace is short by an inch. Still there’s ways and ways of fixing it, but only one right way. If I make the sleeve smaller the lace will fit, but poor Helen won’t get her arm through it. If I tack on a bit more lace it’ll muss the job, and make it look bad. Then there’s other ways, too, but – there’s only one right way.” She dropped the lace in her basket and began to fold the garment. “I’ll get some new lace that does fit,” she declared emphatically.

Fyles nodded, but the amusement died out of his eyes.

“All of which is sound sense,” he said seriously, “and is leading us toward controversial – er – subjects. Eh?”

Kate raised a pair of shoulders with pretended indifference. But her eyes were smiling that challenge which Stanley Fyles always associated with her.

“Not a bad thing when the police are getting so very busy, and – you are their chief in the district,” she said.

“I must once more remark, you are well informed,” smiled Fyles.

“And I must once more remark not as well informed as I could wish,” retorted Kate quickly.

Fyles had permitted his gaze to wander down the wooded course of the river. Kate was watching him closely, speculatively. And curious enough she was thinking more of the man than his work at that moment.

The man’s eyes came back abruptly to her face, and her expression was instantly changed to one of smiling irony.

“Well?” she demanded.

Fyles shook his head.

“It isn’t,” he said. “May I ask how you know we are – so very busy?”

“Sure,” cried Kate, with a frank laugh. “You see, I have two of the worst scamps in the valley working for me, and they seem to think it more than necessary that they keep themselves posted as to – your movements.”

“I see.” Fyles’s lighter mood had entirely passed, and with its going Kate’s became more marked. “I s’pose they spy out everything for the benefit of their – chief.”

Kate clapped her hands.

“What reasoning. I s’pose they have a chief?” she added slyly.

A frown of irritation crossed the policeman’s brow.

“Must we open up that old sore, Miss Kate?” he, asked almost sharply. “They are known to be – when not occupied with the work of your farm – assisting Charlie Bryant in his whisky-running schemes. They are two of his lieutenants.”

“And so, because they are so known among the village people here, you are prosecuting this campaign against a man whom you hope to catch red-handed.”

“I have sufficient personal evidence to – prosecute my campaign,” said Fyles quickly. “As you said just now, we are not idle.”

“Yes, I know,” Kate sighed, and her gaze was turned upon the western reaches of the valley. “Your camp out there is full of activity. So is Winter’s Crossing. And the care with which you mask your coming and going is known to everybody. It is a case of the hunter being hunted. Yes, I say it without resentment, I am glad of these things, because I – must know.”

“If we are against each other – it is only natural you should wish to know.”

Kate’s eyes opened wider.

“Of course we are against each other, as long as you are against Charlie. But only in our – official capacities.” A whimsical smile stole into the woman’s eyes. “Oh, you are so – so obstinate,” she cried in mock despair. “In this valley it is no trouble for me to watch your every move, and, in Charlie’s interests, to endeavor to frustrate them. But the worst of it is I’d – I’d like to see you win out. Instead of that I know you won’t. You’ve had some news. You had it yesterday, I suppose, by that patrol. Maybe it’s news of another cargo coming in, and you are getting ready to capture it, and – Charlie. I’m not here to give any one away, I’m not here to tell you all I know, must know, living in the valley, but you are doomed, utterly doomed to failure, if you count the capture of Charlie success.”

In spite of the lightness of Kate’s manner her words were not without their effect upon Fyles. There was a ring of sincerity in them that would not be denied. But its effect upon him was not that which she could have wished. His face set almost sternly. The challenge of the woman had stirred him out of his calm assurance, but it was in a direction which she could scarcely have expected. He thrust his sunburned face forward more aggressively, and challenged her in return.

“What is this man to you?” he demanded, his square jaws seeming to clip his question the more shortly.

In a moment Kate’s face was flushing her resentment. Her dark eyes were sparkling with a sudden leaping anger.

“You have no right to – ask me that,” she cried. But Fyles had committed himself. Nor would he draw back.

“Haven’t I?” he laughed harshly. “All’s fair in love and – war. We are at war – officially.”

The woman’s flushing cheeks remained, but the sparkle of her eyes had changed again to an ironical light.

“War – yes. Perhaps you’re right. The only courtesies recognized in war are observed in the prize ring, and in international warfare. Our warfare must be less exalted, and permits hitting – below the belt. I’ve told you what Charlie is to me, and I have told you truly. I am trying to defend an innocent man, who is no more to me than a brother, or – or son. I am doing so because of his peculiar ailments which make him well-nigh incapable of helping himself. You see, he does not care. His own safety, his own welfare, are nothing to him. It is for that reason, for the way he acts in consequence of these things, that all men believe him a rogue, and a – a waster. I tell you he is neither.”

She finished up a little breathlessly. She had permitted her loyalty and anxiety to carry her beyond the calm fencing she had intended.

But Fyles remained unmoved, except that the harshness had gone out of his manner.

“It is not I who am obstinate,” he said soberly. “It is you, Miss Kate. What if I told you I had irrefutable circumstantial evidence against him? Would that turn you from your faith in him?”

The woman shook her head.

“It would be merely circumstantial evidence,” she said. “God knows how circumstance has filled our penitentiaries wrongfully,” she added bitterly.

“And but for circumstance our population of wrongdoers at large would be greater by a thousand per cent.,” retorted the officer.

“That is supposition,” smiled Kate.

“Which does not rob it of its possibility in fact.”

The two sat looking at each other, silently defiant. Kate was smiling. A great excitement was thrilling her, and she liked this man all the better for his blunt readiness for combat, even with her.

Fyles was wondering at this woman, half angry, half pleased. Her strength and readiness appealed to him as a wonderful display.

He was the first to speak, and, in doing so, he felt he was acknowledging his worsting in the encounter.

“It’s – it’s impossible to fight like this,” he said lamely. “I am not accustomed to fight with women.”

“Does it matter, so long as a woman can fight?” Kate cried quickly. “Chivalry?” she went on contemptuously. “That’s surely a survival of ages when the old curfew rang, and a lot of other stupid notions filled folks’ minds. I – I just love to fight.”

Her smile was so frankly infectious that Fyles found himself responding. He heaved a sigh.

“It’s no good,” he said almost hopelessly. “You must stick to your belief, and I to mine. All I hope, Miss Kate, is that when I’ve done with this matter the pain I’ve inflicted on you will not be unforgivable.”

The woman’s eyes were turned away. They had become very soft as she gazed over at the distant view of Charlie’s house.

“I don’t think it will be,” she said gently. Then with a quick return to her earlier manner: “You see, you will never get the chance of hurting Charlie.” A moment later she inquired naively: “When is the cargo coming in?”

But Fyles’s exasperation was complete.

“When?” he cried. “Why, when this scamp is ready for it. It’s – it’s no use, Miss Kate. I can’t stop, or – or I’ll be forgetting you are a woman, and say ‘Damn!’ I admit you have bested me, but – young Bryant hasn’t. I – ” he broke off, laughing in spite of his annoyance, and Kate cordially joined in.

“But he will,” she cried, as Peter began to move away. “Good-bye, Mr. Fyles,” she added, in her ironical fashion as she picked up her sewing. “I can get on with these important matters – now.”

The man’s farewell was no less cordial, and his better sense told him that in accepting his defeat at her hands he had won a good deal in another direction where he hoped to finally achieve her capitulation.

While the skirmish between Stanley Fyles and Kate Seton was going on, the object of it was discussing the doings of the police and the prospect of the coming struggle with Big Brother Bill on the veranda of his house.

He was leaning against one of its posts while Bill reposed on the hard seat of a Windsor chair, seeking what comfort he could find in the tremendous heat by abandoning all superfluous outer garments.

Charlie’s face was darkly troubled. His air was peevishly irritable.

“Bill,” he said, with a deep thrill of earnestness in his voice, as he thrust his brown, delicate hands into the tops of his trousers. “All the trouble in the world’s just about to start, if I’m a judge of the signs of things. There’s a whole crowd of the police in the valley now. They’re camped higher up. They think we don’t know, but we do – all of us. I wonder what they think they’re going to do?”

His manner became more excited, and his voice grew deeper and deeper.

“They think they’re going to get a big haul of liquor. They think they’re going to get me. I tell you, Bill, that for men trained to smelling things out, they’re blunderers. Their methods are clumsy as hell. I could almost laugh, if – if I didn’t feel sick at their coming around.”

Bill stirred uneasily.

“If there were no whisky-running here they wouldn’t be around,” he said pointedly.

Charlie eyed him curiously.

“No,” he said. Then he added, “And if there were no whisky-running there’d be no village here. If there were no village here we shouldn’t be here. Kate and her sister wouldn’t be here. Nothing would be here, but the old pine – that goes on forever. This village lives on the prohibition law. Fyles may have a reputation, but he’s clumsy – damned clumsy. I’d like to see ahead – the next few days.”

“He’s smelling a cargo – coming in, isn’t he?” Bill’s tact was holding him tight.

Again Charlie looked at him curiously before he replied.

“That’s how they reckon,” he said guardedly, at last.

Bill had turned away, vainly searching his unready wit for the best means of carrying on the discussion. Suddenly his eyes lit, and he pointed across at the Seton’s house.

“Say, who’s that – on that horse? Isn’t it Fyles? He’s talking to some one. Looks like – ”

He broke off. Charlie was staring out in the direction indicated, and, in a moment, his excitement passed, swallowed up in a frowning, brooding light that had suddenly taken possession of his dark eyes.

Bill finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

“It’s – Fyles?” he said.

“Yes, it’s Fyles,” said Charlie, with a sudden suppressed fury. “It’s Fyles – curse him, and he’s talking to – Kate.”

At the sound of his brother’s tone, even Bill realized his blundering. He knew he had fired a train of passion that was to be deplored, even dreaded in his brother. He blamed himself bitterly for his lack of forethought, his absurd want of discretion.

But the mischief was done. Charlie had forgotten everything else.

Bill stirred again in his chair.

“What does he want down there?” he demanded, for lack of something better to say.

“What does he want?” Charlie laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh, a savage laugh. It was a laugh that spoke of sore heart, and feelings crowding with bitterness. “I guess he wants something he’ll never get – while I’m alive.”

He relapsed into moody silence, and a new expression grew in his eyes till it even dominated that which had shone in them before. Bill thought he recognized it. The word “funk” flashed through his mind, and left him wondering. What could Charlie have to fear from Fyles talking to Kate? Did he believe that Kate would let the officer pump her with regard to his, Charlie’s, movements!

Yes, that must be it.

“He won’t get more than five cents for his dollar out of her,” he said, in an effort to console.

Charlie was round on him in a flash.

“Five cents for a dollar? No,” he cried, “nor one cent, nor a fraction of a cent. Fyles is dealing with the cleverest, keenest woman I’ve ever met in all my life. I’m not thinking that way. I’m thinking how almighty easy it is for a man walking a broken trail to trip and smash himself right up. The more sure he is the worse is his fall, because – he takes big chances, and big chances mean big falls. You’ve hit it, Bill, I’m scared – scared to death just now. If I know Fyles there’s going to be one hell of a time around here, and, if you value your future, get clear while you can. I’m scared, Bill, scared and mad. I can’t stand to watch that man talking to Kate. I’m not scared of man or devil, but I’m scared – scared to death when I see that. I must get out of this. I must get away, or – ”

He moved off the veranda in a frantic state of nervous passion.

Bill sprang from his seat and was at his brother’s side in two great strides, and his big hand fell with no little force upon the latter’s arm and held it.

“What do you mean?” he cried apprehensively. “Where – where are you going?”

With surprising strength Charlie flung him off. He turned, facing him with angry eyes and flushed face.

“Don’t you dare lay hand on me like that again, Bill,” he cried dangerously. “I don’t stand for that from – anybody. I’m going down the village, since you want to know. I’m going down to O’Brien’s. And you can get it right now that I wouldn’t stand the devil himself butting in to stop me.”

CHAPTER XXIII

STORM CLOUDS

A dispirited creature made its way down to the Setons’ house that same evening. Big Brother Bill felt there was not one single clear thought in his troubled head, at least, not one worth thinking. He was weighted down by a hazy conception of the position of things, in a manner that came near to destroying the very root of his optimism.

One or two things settled upon his mind much in the manner of mental vampires. He knew that Charlie was threatened, and he knew that Charlie knew it, and made no attempt to protect himself. He knew that Charlie was also scared – frightened out of all control of himself in a manner that was absurdly contradictory. He knew that he was now at the saloon for the purpose of drowning his hopeless feelings in the maddening spirit O’Brien dispensed. He knew that his own baggage had at last arrived from Heaven only knew where, and he wished it hadn’t, for it left him feeling even more burdened than ever with the responsibilities of the pestilential valley. He knew that he was beginning to hate the police, and Fyles, almost as much as Charlie did. He knew that if prevailing conditions weren’t careful he would lose his temper with them, and make things hot for somebody or something. But, more than all else, he knew that Helen Seton was more than worth all the worry and anxiety he was enduring.

In consequence of all this he arrayed himself in a light tweed suit, a clean, boiled shirt and collar, a tie, that might well have startled the natives of his home city, and a panama hat which he felt was necessary to improve the tropical appearance of his burnt and perspiring features, and hastened to Helen’s presence for comfort and support.

The girl had been waiting for him. She looked the picture of diaphanous coolness in the shade of the house, lounging in an old wicker chair, with its fellow, empty, drawn up beside her. There were no feminine eyes to witness her little schemes, and Bill? – why, Bill was delighted beyond words that she was there, also the empty chair, also, that, as he believed, while she was wholly unconscious of the fact, the girl’s attitude and costume were the most innocently pleasing things he had ever beheld with his two big, blue, appreciative eyes.

He promptly told her so.

“Say, Hel,” he cried, “you don’t mind me calling you ‘Hel,’ do you? – you see, everything delightful seems to be associated with ‘Hell’ nowadays. If you could see yourself and the dandy picture you make you’d kind of understand how I feel just about now.”

The girl smiled her delight.

“Maybe I do understand,” she said. “You see, I don’t always sit around in this sort of fancy frock. Then, no girl of sense musses herself into an awkward pose when six foot odd of manhood’s getting around her way. No, no Big Brother Bill. That chair didn’t get there by itself. Two carefully manicured hands put it there, after their owner had satisfied herself that her mirror hadn’t made a mistake, and that she was looking quite her most attractive. You see, you’d promised to come to see me this evening, and – well, I’m woman enough to be very pleased. That’s all.”

Bill’s sun-scorched face deepened its ruddy hue with youthful delight.

“Say, you did all this for – for me?”

Helen laughed.

“Why, yes, and told you the various details to be appreciated, because I was scared to death you wouldn’t get them right.”

Bill sat himself down, and set the chair creaking as he turned it about facing her. He held out his hands.

“I haven’t seen the manicuring racket right, yet,” he laughed.

Helen stretched out her two hands toward him for inspection. He promptly seized them in his, and pretended to examine them.

“The prettiest, softest, jolliest – ”

But the girl snatched them away.

“That’s not inspection. That’s – ”

“Sure it’s not,” retorted Bill easily. “It’s true.”

“And absurd.”

“What – the truth?”

Bill’s blue eyes were widely inquiring.

“Sometimes.”

The smile died out of the man’s eyes, and his big face became doleful.

“Yes, I s’pose it is.”

Helen set up.

“What’s gone wrong – now? What truth is – absurd?” she demanded.

The man shrugged.

“Oh, everything. Say, have you ever heard of a disease of the – the brain called ‘partly hatched’?”

The girl’s eyes twinkled.

“I don’t kind of remember it.”

“No, I don’t s’pose you do. I don’t think anybody ever has it but me. I’ve got it bad. This valley’s given it me, and – and if it isn’t careful it’s going to get fatal.”

Helen looked around at him in pretended sympathy.

“What’s the symptoms? Nothing outward? I mean that tie – that’s not a symptom, is it?”

Bill shook his head. He was smiling, but beneath his smile there was a certain seriousness.

“No. There’s no outward signs – yet. I got it through thinking too – too young. You see, I’ve done so much thinking in the last week. If it had been spread over, say six months, the hatching might have got fixed right. But it’s been too quick, and things have got addled. You see, if a hen turned on too much pressure of heat her eggs would get fried – or addled. That’s how my brain is. It’s addled.”

Helen nodded with a great show of seriousness which the twitching corners of her pretty mouth belied.

“I always thought you’d got a trouble back of your – head. But you’d best tell me. You see, I don’t get enough pressure of thinking to hatch anything. Maybe between us we can fix your mental eggs right.”

Bill’s big eyes lit with relief and hope.

“That’s bright of you. You surely are the cutest girl ever. You must have got a heap of brain to spare.”

Helen could no longer restrain her laughter.

“It’s mostly all – spare. Now, then, tell me all your troubles.”

The great creature at her side looked doubtful and puzzled.

“I don’t know just where to begin. There’s such a heap, and I’ve worried thinking about it, till – till – ”

Helen sat up and propped her chin in her hands with her elbows on her knees.

“When you don’t know where to begin just start with the first thought in your head, and – and – ramble.”

Bill brightened up.

“Sure that’s best?”

“Sure.”

The man sighed in relief.

“That’s made a heap of difference,” he cried. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as though he were defying an enemy. “Will you marry me?” he demanded, and sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either hand.

The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her chair and laughed.

“We – we are talking of troubles,” she protested.

Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.

“Troubles? Troubles? Isn’t that trouble enough to start with? It’s – it’s the root of it all,” he declared. “I’m – I’m just crazy about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police, and – and the scallywags of the valley, I – I find you mixed up with it all, and get so tangled up that I don’t know where I am, or – or why. Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for instance? It’s the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you’re pleased – then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts of fool things that haven’t any sense at all. Then you want to make rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females aren’t women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world’s on a pivot, and that pivot’s just yourself, and if you weren’t there there’d be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and you don’t care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they’re worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can’t see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and – and everything. And you wouldn’t have things different, or stop making such a fool of yourself, no – not if hell froze over. Will – will you marry me?”