"Yes, I dare say you and other folks have broken those things up, often--but the spiders thrive and multiply. You see, when one net is busted they--make another. They don"t seem to starve ever, do they?
Ever seen a spider dead of starvation?"
"Can"t say I have." Bill shook his great head. "But maybe they"d get a bad time if they set their traps for any special flies--or fly."
Fyles raised his powerful shoulders coldly.
"Guess the spider business doesn"t go far enough," he said, talking directly at Big Brother Bill. "When I spoke of that lever just now, maybe you didn"t get my meaning quite clearly. That gang, who ran the liquor in last night, put themselves further up against the law than maybe they think. It was an armed attack on the police, which is quite a different thing to just simple whisky-running. Get me? The police are always glad when crooks do that. It pays them better--when the time comes."
Bill had no reply. He suddenly experienced the chill of the cold steel of police methods. A series of painful pictures rose up before his mind"s eye, which held his tongue silent. Helen quickly came to his rescue.
"But who"s to say who did it?" she demanded.
Fyles smiled down into her pretty face.
"Those who want to save their skins--when the time comes."
It was Helen"s turn to realize something of the irresistible nature of the work of the police. Somehow she felt that the defeat of the police last night was but a shadowy success after all, for those concerned in the whisky-running. Her thought flew at once to Charlie, and she shuddered at the suggested possibilities in Fyles"s words.
She turned away.
"Well, all I can say is, I--I hate it all, and wish it was all over and done with. Everybody"s talking, everybody"s gloating, and--and it just makes me feel scared to death." Then she turned again to Bill.
"Let"s go on," she cried, a little desperately. "We"ll finish our shopping, and--and get away from it all. It just makes me real ill."
She waved a farewell to Kate and moved away, and Bill, like some faithful watchdog, followed at her heels. Fyles looked after them both with serious, earnest eyes. Kate watched them smiling.
Presently Fyles turned back to her.
"Well?" he demanded.
Kate"s eyes were slowly raised to his.
"Well?" she echoed. "So----"
She broke off. Her generous nature checked her in time. She had been about to twit him with his defeat. She sympathized with his feelings at the thought of his broken hopes.
"Better say it," said Fyles, with a smile, in which chagrin and tenderness struggled for place. "You were going to say I have been defeated, as you told me I should be defeated."
"I s"pose I was." Kate glanced quickly up into his face, but the feeling she beheld there made her turn her eyes away so that they followed Bill and Helen moving down the trail. "Women are usually ungenerous to--an adversary." Then her whole manner changed to one of kindly frankness. "Do you know my feelings are sort of mixed about your--defeat----"
"Not defeat," put in Fyles. "Check."
Kate smiled.
"Well, then, "check." I am glad--delighted--since you direct all your suspicions against Charlie. Then I am full of regret for you, because--because I know the rigor of police discipline. In the eyes of the authorities you have failed--twice. Oh, if you would only attack this thing with an open mind, and not start prejudiced against Charlie. I wish you had never listened to local gossip. If that were so I could be on your side, and--and with true sportsmanship, wish you well. Besides that, I might be able to tell you things. You see, I learn many things in the village that others do not--hear."
Fyles was studying the woman"s face closely as she spoke. And something he beheld there robbed his defeat of a good deal of its sting. Her words were the words of partisanship, and her partisanship was for another as well as himself. Had this not been so, had her partisanship been for him alone, he could well have abandoned himself to an open mind, as she desired. As it was, she drove him to a dogged pursuit of the man he was convinced was the real culprit.
"Don"t let us reopen the old subject," he said, with a shade of irritability. "I have evidence you know nothing of, and I should be mad indeed if I changed my objective at your desire, for the sake of the unsupported belief and regard you have for this man. Let us be content to be adversaries, each working out our little campaign as we think best. Don"t waste regrets at my failures. I know the price I have to pay for them--only too well. I know, and I tell you frankly, but only you, that my career in the police may terminate in consequence. That"s all right. The prestige of the force cannot be maintained by--failures. The prestige of the force is very dear to me.
If you have anything to tell me that may lead me in the direction of the real culprit, then tell me. If not--why let us be friends until--until my work has made that impossible. I--I want your friendship very much."
Kate"s eyes were turned from him. The deep light in them was very soft.
"Do you?" she smiled. "Well--perhaps you have it, in spite of our temporary antagonism. Oh, dear--it"s all so absurd."
Fyles laughed.
"Isn"t it? But, then, anything out of the ordinary is generally absurd, until we get used to it. Somehow, it doesn"t seem absurd that I want your--friendship. At least, not to me."
Kate smiled up into his face.
"And yet it is--absurd."
The man"s eyes suddenly became serious.
"Why?"
Kate shrugged.
"That"s surely explained. We are--antagonists."
Again that look of impatience crossed the man"s keen features. As he offered no reply, Kate went on.
"About the armed attack on the police. You said it made all the difference. What is the difference?"
"Anything between twelve months in the penitentiary and twenty years--when the gang is landed."
"Twenty years!" The woman gave a slight gasp.
The man nodded.
"And do you know the logical consequence of it all?" he inquired.
"No." Kate"s eyes were horrified.
"Why, when next we come into conflict there will be shooting if these people are pressed. They will have to shoot to save themselves. Then there may be murder added to their list of--delinquencies. These things follow in sequence. It is the normal progress of those who put themselves on the side of crime."
CHAPTER XXVII
AT THE HIDDEN CORRAL
Charlie Bryant urged his horse at a dangerous pace along the narrow, winding cattle tracks which threaded the upper reaches of the valley.
He gave no heed to anything--the lacerating thorns, the great, knotty roots, with which the paths were studded, the overhanging boughs. His sole object seemed to be a desperate desire to reach his destination.
His horse often floundered and tripped, the man"s own clothes were frequently ripped by the thorns, and the bleeding flesh beneath laid bare, while it seemed a miracle that he successfully dodged the threatening boughs overhead.