The Law-Breakers

“You – you came to tell me – all this?” she said, in a low tone. “You came to assure yourself of my – happiness?” Then she shook her head. “Tell me the rest.”

It was Charlie’s turn to hesitate now. The demand had robbed him of the small enough confidence he possessed.

But Kate was waiting and he had no power to deny her anything.

“I came to tell you of – things, while I still have the chance. To-morrow? Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth?”

A keen, hard light suddenly flashed into the woman’s eyes.

“What of – to-morrow?” she demanded sharply, while she studied the man’s pale features, with their boyish good looks.

For answer Charlie reached out and caught one of her hands in both of his. She strove to release it, but he clung to it despairingly.

“No, no, Kate. Don’t take it away,” he cried passionately. “It is for the last – the very last time. Tell me, dear, is – is there no hope for me? None? Kate, I love you so. I do – dear. I will give up everything for you, dear, everything. I can do it. I will do it. I swear it, if – only you’ll love me. Tell me. Is there – ?”

Kate shook her head, and the man dropped her hand with a gesture of utter hopelessness.

“My love is given, Charlie. Believe me, I have not given it. It – it is simply gone from me.”

Kate sighed. Then her mood changed again. That sharp alert look came into her eyes once more.

“Tell me – of to-morrow,” she urged him.

The second demand had a pronounced effect upon Charlie. The air of the suppliant fell from him, even the signs of his recent debauch seemed to give way before a startling alertness of mentality. In his curious way he seemed suddenly to have become the man of action, full of a keenness of perception and shrewdness which might well have carried an added conviction to Stanley Fyles, had he witnessed the display.

“Listen,” he said, with a thrill of excitement. “Maybe it’s not necessary to tell you. Maybe it’s stale news. Anyway, to-morrow is to be the day of Fyles’s coup.” He paused, watching for the effect of his words.

Just for an instant the woman’s eyes flashed, but whether in fear, or merely excited interest, it would have been impossible to say.

“Go on,” she said.

“To-morrow the village is to be surrounded by a chain of police patrols. Every entry will be closely watched for the incoming cargo of whisky. Fyles reckons to get me red-handed.”

“You?”

Kate’s eyes flashed again.

“Sure. That’s how he reckons.”

They looked into each other’s eyes steadily. Charlie’s were lit by a curious baffling irony.

It was finally Charlie who spoke.

“Fyles’s plans are not likely to disconcert – anybody. There is no fear of legitimate capture. It is treachery – that is to be feared.”

Kate started.

“Treachery?”

The man nodded. And the woman gave a sharp exclamation of disgust.

“Treachery! I hate it. I despise it. I – I could kill a traitor. You – fear treachery?”

“I have been warned of it. That’s all,” he said, in a hard biting voice. “It is because of this I’ve come to you to-night. Who can tell the outcome of to-morrow if there’s treachery? So I came to you to make my – last appeal.” In a moment his passion was blazing forth again. “Say the word, dear. Forget this man. Give me one little grain of hope. We can leave this place, and all the treachery in the world doesn’t matter. We can leave that, and everything else, behind us – forever.”

Kate shook her head. It almost seemed as though his pleading had passed her by.

“It can’t be,” she said, almost coldly. “It’s too late.”

“Too late?”

The woman nodded, but her thoughts seemed far away.

“Tell me,” she said, after a pause, while she avoided the man’s despairing eyes, “where does the treachery – lie?”

The man turned away. His slim shoulders lifted with seeming indifference.

“Pete Clancy and Nick Devereux – your two boys. But I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.”

Suddenly Kate moved toward him. The coldness had passed out of her manner. Her eyes had softened, and a smile, a tender smile, shone in their depths. She held out her two hands.

“Charlie, boy,” she said, “you needn’t fear for treachery for to-morrow. Leave Pete and Nick to me. I can deal with them. I promise you Fyles will gain nothing in the game he’s playing, through them. Now, you must go. Give up all thought of me. We cannot help things. We can never be anything to each other, more than we are now, so why endure the pain and misery of a hope than can never be fulfilled. As long as I live I shall pray for your welfare. So long as I can I shall strive for it. It is for you to be strong. You must set your heart upon living down this old past, and – forgetting me. I am not worth the love you give me. Indeed – indeed I am not.”

But her outstretched hands were ignored. Charlie made a slight, impatient movement, and turned toward the door. Finally he looked back, and, for a moment, his gaze encountered the appeal in Kate’s eyes. Then he passed on swiftly as though he could not endure the sight of all that which he knew to be slipping from beyond his reach.

One hand reached the door handle, then he hunched his shoulders obstinately.

“I give up nothing, Kate. Nothing,” he said doggedly. “I love you, and I shall go on loving you to – the end.”

It was late when Kate returned to her home. The house was in darkness, and the moon brought it out in silvery, frigid relief. Thrusting the front door open, she paused for a moment upon the threshold. She might have been listening; she might merely have been thinking. Finally she sat down and removed her shoes and gently tip-toed to her sister’s room.

Helen’s door was ajar, and she pushed it open and looked in. The moonlight was shining across her sister’s fair features, and the mass of loose fair hair which framed them. She was sound asleep in that wonderful dreamless land of rest, far from the turbulent little world in which her waking hours were spent.

Kate as softly withdrew. Now she made her way back to the familiar kitchen parlor, and, in the dark, took up her position at the open window. Her whole attention was centered upon the ranch house of Charlie Bryant across the valley, which stood out in the moonlight almost as clearly as in daylight. A light was shining in one of its windows.

She sat there waiting with infinite patience, and at last the light was extinguished. Then she rose, and, going to her bureau, picked up a pair of night glasses. She leveled these at the distant house and continued her watch.

Her vigil, however, did not last long. In a few minutes she distinctly beheld a figure move out on to the veranda. Its identity, at that distance, she was left to conjecture. But she saw it leave the veranda and make its way round to the barn. A few minutes later, again, it reappeared, this time mounted upon a horse.

She sighed. It was a sigh of impatience, it was also a sigh of resignation. Then she rose from her seat, and returned her night glasses to the bureau. Again she looked out of the window, but this time she remained standing. Nor were her eyes turned upon the distant ranch house. Her whole attitude was one of deep pensiveness.

At last, however, she stirred, and, quite suddenly, her movements became quick and decided. It almost seemed as though she had finally reached a definite resolve.

She passed out of the room, and then out of the house through the back way. The little barn was within a hundred yards of the house. She was still in the shadow of the house when she became aware of figures moving just outside the barn. In a moment she recognized them. They were her two hired men in the act of riding away on their horses.

She let them get well away. Then she drew the door close after her and crossed over to the barn.

The door was open and she went in. Passing the two empty stalls where the men’s horses were kept, she went on to another, where her own horse, hearing her approach, set its collar chains rattling and greeted her with a suppressed whinny.

It was the work of but a few minutes to saddle him and bring him out into the moonlight. Then she mounted him and rode off in the wake of those who had gone on before.

CHAPTER XXV

THE BROKEN CHAIN

The peace of Sunday evening merged into the calm of night. Service was long since over in the old Meeting House. The traveling parson had come and gone. He had done his duty. He had read the service to the lounging, unkempt congregation, he had prayed over them, he had preached at them. He had done all these things because it was his duty to do so, but he had done them without the least hope of improving the morals of his unworthy flock, or of penetrating one single fraction through their crime-stained armor of self-satisfaction. Rocky Springs was one of the shadowed corners upon his tour, into which, he felt, it was beyond his power to impart light.

There were those in the valley who viewed the Sabbath calm with a derisive smile. There were those who sat upon their little verandas and smoked, and talked in hushed voices, lest listening ears might catch the ominous purport of their words. There were others who went to their beds with a shrug of pretended indifference, feeling glad that for once, at least, their homes were a haven of safety for themselves.

Rocky Springs as a whole knew that something was afoot – some play in which some one was to be worsted, in which, maybe, a life or two would be lost. Anyway, the players were Law versus Outlaw, and those who were not actually concerned with the game felt glad that they still had another night under their own roofs.

It was truly extraordinary how unspoken news spread. It was extraordinary the scent of battle, the scent of a struggle against the law, that was possessed by this people. Everybody seemed to know that to-night something like history was to be made in the annals of the crime of the valley.

So the peace of the valley was almost remarkable. An undoubted air of studied indifference prevailed, but surely it was carefully studied.

Neither Fyles nor any of his police had been seen the whole day. None of them had attended divine service. It was almost as if they had entirely vanished from the precincts of the valley.

So the sun sank, and the ruddy clouds rose up from the west like the fiery splash of the molten contents of the cauldron into which the great ball of fire had plunged. They rose up, and then dispersed, vanishing into thin air, and making way for the soft sheen of a myriad stars, and leaving clear a perfect night for the great summer moon to illuminate.

Two by two a large number of horsemen rode out of the valley of Leaping Creek. Once away from the starting point, their movements, their figures became elusive and shadowy. They passed out from among the trees, on to the wide plains above, and each couple split up, taking their individual ways with a certainty which displayed their perfect prairie craft.

Far out into the night they rode, each with clear instructions filling his mind, each with the certainty that one or more of their number must be brought face to face with a crisis before morning, which would need all their nerve and wit to bring to a successful issue.

The moon rose up, a great golden globe, slowly changing to a cold silvery light as it mounted the starlit vault. Then came a change. Instead of leaving a starry track behind it, a bank of cloud followed hard upon its heels, threatening to overtake it and hide its splendor behind a pall of summer storm.

Stanley Fyles watched with satisfaction the signs of the night.

A solitary horseman sat leaning forward upon the horn of his saddle, his eyes searching, searching, with aching intensity, that dim, shadowed skyline now almost lost against its backing of cloud. He was half-hidden in the shadow of a small bluff of spruce, with the depths of the valley hard behind him.

Not only were his eyes searching with an almost unblinking watchfulness, but his ears, too, were busy with that intense, nerve-racking straining which leaves them ever ready to carry the phantom sounds of imagination to the impatient brain above.

It was a long, intense vigil, and a hundred times the waiting man saw movements and heard sounds which set him ready to give the final signal which was to complete the carefully laid plans of his chief. But, in each case, he was spared the false alarm to which tricks of imagination so nearly drove him.

Midnight came and passed. The sky grew more threatening. The man’s eyes were upon that distant, southern upland which marked the skyline. Something seemed to be moving in the hazy distance, but as yet there was no sound accompanying the movement.

Was there not? Hark, what was that?

The man sighed. It was the rustle of the trees about him, stirred by a gentle rising breeze. But was it? Hark! That sounded like a footfall. But a footfall was not wanted. It was the sound of wheels for which his ears were straining. Ah, that was surely the wind. And – yes – listen. A rumble. It might be the wheels at last, or was it thunder? He sat up. The strain was hard to bear. It was thunder. And his eyes, for a moment, left the horizon for the clouds above. He regretted the absence of the moon. It left his work doubly difficult. He wondered —

But his wonder ceased, and he fell like a stone out of the saddle. He struggled fiercely, but his arms were held to his sides immovable. He had a vague recollection of a swift whirring sound, but that was all. Then he found himself struggling furiously on the ground with his horse vanished.

Inspector Fyles was thinking of many things. His post was at a point overlooking the Fort Alberton trail, which wound its way in the wide trough of two great, still waves of prairieland directly in front of him. Nothing could pass that way and remain unobserved, excepting under cover of the storm which seemed to be gathering.

He patted Peter’s arched neck, and the well-mannered, amiable creature responded by champing its bit impatiently. Fyles smiled. He knew that Peter loved to be traveling far and fast.

He turned his eyes skywards. Perhaps it was not a storm. There were breaks here and there, and occasionally a star peeped out and twinkled mockingly at him. Still, he must hope for the best. A storm would favor his quarry, besides being – . Hark!

A shot rang out in the distance, away to the east. One – two! Wait. A third! There it was. To the east. They were coming on over the southern trail, and that was in McBain’s section!

He lifted his reins, and Peter promptly laid his swift heels to the ground. Three shots. Fyles hoped the fourth would not be fired until he was within striking distance of the spot.

Four horsemen were converging upon the bluff whence the shots had proceeded. Each of the four had heard the three shots fired, each was executing the tactical arrangement agreed upon, and each was waiting as he rode, laboring under a high nervous tension, for the fourth shot, which was to confirm the alarm and notify the definite discovery of the contraband.

It was withheld.

Fyles was the first to reach the bluff, but, almost at the same moment, McBain’s great horse drew up with a jolt. The inspector saw the approach of his subordinate while his eyes were still searching the skirts of the bluff for the patrol who had given the signal.

“He should be on the southeast side,” said McBain, and rode off in that direction. Fyles followed hard upon his heels.

They had gone less than two hundred yards when the officer saw the shadowy form of the Scot throw itself back in the saddle, and pull his great horse back upon its haunches. Fyles swept up on the swift-footed Peter. He, too, reined up with a jolt and leaped out of the saddle.

McBain was on his knees beside the prostrate form of the sentry. The man was bound hand and foot, and a heavy gag was secured in his widely forced open mouth.

At that moment two troopers dashed up. And the sounds of others foregathering could be plainly heard.

As Fyles regarded the prostrate man he realized that once more he had been defeated. He did not require to wait for the gag to be removed. He understood.

He leaped into the saddle, as McBain cut the gag from the man’s mouth. A sharp inquiry broke the silence.

“Say, did you fire that – alarm?” Fyles cried almost fiercely.

The man had struggled to a sitting posture, and began to explain.

“No, sir. I was dragged – ”

“Never mind what happened. You didn’t give the alarm?”

“No, sir.”

“Quick, McBain!” Fyles almost shouted. “They’ve done us. Cut him loose, and follow me. They’re on the Fort Allerton trail – or my name’s not Fyles.”

Peter led the race for the Fort Allerton trail. The dark night clouds were breaking when they reached the spot where the inspector had originally stationed himself. They passed on, and a glimmer of moonlight peeped out at them as they reached the trail side.

Fyles and McBain leaped from their saddles and examined the sandy surface of it. Two of the troopers joined them.

At length the officer spoke, and his voice had lost something of its sharp tone of authority.

“They’ve beaten us, McBain,” he cried. “God’s curse on them, they’ve played us at our own game, and – beaten us. A wagon and team’s passed here less than five minutes ago. Look at the dust track they’ve left.”

Fyles stood up. Then he started, and an angry glitter shone in his gray eyes. A horseman was silently looking on at the group of dismounted men, deliberately watching their movements. In the heat of the hunt no one had heard his approach. He sat there looking on in absolute silence.

Fyles moved clear of his men and strode up to the horseman. He halted within a yard of him, while the rest of the party looked on in amazement. McBain was the only one to make any move. He followed hard on his chief’s heels.

Fyles looked up into the horseman’s face. The sky had cleared and the moon was shining once more. A sudden fury leaped to the officer’s brain, and, for a moment, all discretion was very nearly flung to the winds. By a great effort, however, he checked his mad impulse.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Bryant?” he demanded sharply.

Charlie Bryant leaned forward upon the horn of his saddle. His dark eyes were smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile.

“Why, wondering what you fellows are doing here,” he said calmly.

Fyles stared, and again his fury nearly got the better of him.

“That’s no answer to my question,” he snapped.

“Isn’t it?” A subtle change was in Charlie Bryant’s manner. His smile remained, but it was full of a burning dislike, and even insolence. “Guess it’s all you’ll get from a free citizen. I’ve as much right here looking on at the escapades of the police, as they have to – indulge in ’em. Guess I’ve had a mighty long day and need to get home. Say, I’m tired. So long.”

He urged his horse forward and passed on down the trail. And as he went a trooper followed him, with orders to track him till daylight.

CHAPTER XXVI

ROCKY SPRINGS HEARS THE NEWS

The news which greeted early morning ears in Rocky Springs was of a quality calculated to upset the entire affairs of the day, and bring a perfect surfeit of grist to O’Brien’s insatiable mill. It even jeopardized the all-important church affairs. No one was inclined to work at all, let alone voluntarily work.

Then, too, there were the difficulties of gathering together a quorum of the Church Construction Committee, and Mrs. John Day, full of righteous indignation and outraged pride, as president, felt and declared that it was a scandal that the degraded doings of a parcel of low-down whisky-runners should be allowed to interfere with the noble cause which the hearts of the valley were set upon. But, being a woman of considerable energy, she by no means yielded to circumstances.

However, her difficulties were considerable. The percolation of the news of the police failure had reduced the male population to the condition of a joyful desire to celebrate in contraband drink. The female population became obsessed with a love of their own doorsteps, whence they could greet each other and exchange loud-voiced opinions with their neighbors, while their household “chores” awaited their later convenience. The children, too, were robbed of their delight in more familiar mischief, and turned their inventive faculties toward something newer and more in keeping with prevailing conditions and sentiments. Thus, a new game was swiftly arranged, and some brighter soul among them christened it the D. I. F. game. The initials were popularly believed to represent “Done is Fyles,” but the enlightened among the boys understood that they stood for “Damn Idjut Fyles,” an interpretation quite in keeping with the general opinion of the people of the valley.

Certainly the atmosphere of the village that morning must have been intolerable to Inspector Fyles, had he permitted himself to dwell upon the indications, the derisive glances, the quiet laugh of men as he chanced to pass. But public opinion and feeling were things he had long since schooled himself to ignore. He was concerned with his superiors, and his superiors only. At all times they were more than sufficient to trouble with, and his whole anxiety was turned in their direction now, in view of his terrible failure of the night before.

Thus he was forced to witness the signs about him, and content himself with the knowledge that he had been bluffed, while he cast about in his troubled mind for a means of appeasing his superior’s official wrath.

The church committee was to assemble at Mrs. John Day’s house at ten o’clock, and the hour passed without a shadow of a quorum being formed. Kate Seton, the honorary secretary, was the only member, besides the president, who put in an appearance at the appointed hour.

So Mrs. Day thrust on her bonnet, and, with every artificial flower in its crown shaking with indignation, set out to “round-up” the members.

O’Brien was impossible. His trade was too overwhelming to be left in the hands of a mere bartender, but there was less excuse for Billy Unguin and Allan Dy, who were merely drinkers in the place. She possessed herself of their persons and marched them off, and gathered up two or three women friends of hers on the way home. Thus, by eleven o’clock, she had the door of her parlor closed upon a more or less efficient quorum.

Then she sat her bulk down with a sigh of enforced content. Her florid face was beaded with perspiration as a result of her efforts.

She turned autocratically to her secretary.

“We’ll dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting,” she declared half-defiantly. “We’ll take ’em as read and passed. This liquor business is driving us all to perdition, as well as wasting our time, which is more important in Rocky Springs. I’ve never seen the like of this place.” She glared directly at the two men. “And the men – well, say, I s’pose they are men, these fellows who stand around decorating that villain O’Brien’s saloon. If it was a christening, they’d drink; if it was a wedding, they’d drink; if it was a funeral, they’d drink; if they were going to stand before their Maker right away, they’d call for rye first.”

After which few opening remarks, given with all the scornful dignity of one who knows she holds the leading position among her sex in the village, she proceeded with the work in hand with a capacity for detail that quite worried the absent minds of the only two male members of the committee present.

Such was the general yearning for a termination of the meeting, so that its members might once more return to the gossip outside, that Mrs. John Day was permitted to carry all her plans in her scheme of salvation before her, with little or no discussion. And, in consequence, her good nature quickly reasserted itself, and she became more and more inclined to look leniently upon the defects of the majority of her committee.

The president disposed of several lesser complaints against the construction of the church to her own satisfaction. The list of them was an accumulation of opinions sent in by people who felt that it was due to the community, and themselves, particularly, that the elected committee were sufficiently harrassed by pin pricks, lest it became too high-handed and autocratic.

Mrs. Day’s methods of dealing with these was characteristic of her social rule in the village. She rose with a look of contemptuous defiance upon her fiery features. It was Helen who had once declared that Mrs. John always reminded her of one of those very red-combed old hens who never failed to cluck themselves very nearly into an apoplectic fit over a helpless worm, and demanded that all eyes should watch her marvelous display of prowess in its slaughter. A slip of paper had been thrust into her hands by the undisturbed honorary secretary.