The Law-Breakers

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, and Bill 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 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 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, 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 assuring 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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.