The Law-Breakers. Cullum Ridgwell
you from?” he demanded peremptorily.
“Just got through from Myrtle,” replied the man, quite undisturbed by the other’s manner.
“Fourteen miles,” said McBain sharply. “Guess your plugs sweated some. What’s your name, and who do you work for?”
“Guess I’m Pete Clancy, an’ I’m Kate Seton’s ‘hired’ man. Been across to Myrtle for fixin’s for her.”
“Fixings?”
The sergeant’s eyes at last compelled the other’s. There was something like insolence in the way Pete Clancy returned his stare. There was also humor.
“Sure,” he returned easily. “Guess you’ll find ’em in the wagon ef you raise that cover. There’s one of them fakes fer sewin’ with. There’s a deal o’ fancy canned truck, an’ say, the leddy’s death on notions. Get a peek at the colors o’ them silk duds. On’y keep dirty hands off’n ’em, or she’ll cuss me to hell for a fust-class hog.”
McBain signed to the trooper at the rear of the wagon and the man stripped the cover off. The first thing the officer beheld was a sewing machine in its shining walnut case. Beside this was an open packing case filled with canned fruits and meats, and a large supply of groceries. In another box, packed under layers of paper, were materials for dressmaking, and a roll of white lawn for other articles of a woman’s apparel.
With obvious disgust he signed again to the trooper to replace the cover. Then Clancy broke in.
“Say,” he cried ironically, “ain’t they dandy? I tell you, sergeant, when it comes to fancy things, women ha’ got us skinned to death. Fancy us wearin’ skirts an’ things made o’ them flimsies! We’d fall right through ’em an’ break our dirty necks. An’ the colors, too. Guess they’d shame a dago wench, an’ set a three-year old stud bull shakin’ his sides with a puffic tempest of indignation. But when it comes to canned truck, well, say, prairie hash ain’t nothin’ to it, an’ if I hadn’t been raised in a Bible class, an’ had the feel o’ the cold water o’ righteousness in my bones, I’d never ha’ hauled them all this way without gettin’ a peek into them cans. I – ”
“Cut it out, man,” cried the officer sharply. “I need a straight word with you. Get me? Straight. Your bluff’ll do for other folks. You haven’t been to Myrtle. You come from White Point, where you helped hold up a freight. You ran a big cargo of liquor in this wagon, which is why your plugs are tuckered out. You’ve cached that liquor in this valley, at the place you gathered up this truck. I don’t say you aren’t ‘hired man’ to Miss Seton in Rocky Springs, but you’re playing a double game. You fetched her goods and dumped ’em at the cache, only to pick ’em up when you were through with your other game.”
The man laughed insolently.
“Gee! I must be a ter’ble bad feller, sergeant,” he cried. “Me, as was raised in a Bible class.” His eyes twinkled as he went on. “An’ I done all that? All that you sed, sergeant? Say, I’m a real bright feller. Guess I’ll get a drink o’ that liquor, won’t I? It ’ud be a bum trick – ”
The sergeant’s eyes snapped.
“You’ll get the penitentiary before we’re through with you. You and the boys with you. We’ve followed your trail all the way, and that trail ends right here. We’re wise to you – ”
“But you ain’t wise where the liquor’s cached,” retorted the man with a chuckle.
Then he looked straight into the officer’s eyes.
“Say,” he cried with his big laugh. “You can talk penitentiary till you’re sick. Ther’ ain’t no liquor in my wagon, an’ if there ever has been any, as you kind o’ fancy, it’s right up to you to locate it, and spill it, an’ not set right there keepin’ me from my work.”
As he finished speaking, with elaborate display, he shook his reins and shouted at his horses, which promptly moved on.
As the wagon rolled away he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder.
“You can’t spill canned truck an’ sewin’ machines, sergeant,” he called back derisively. “That penitentiary racket don’t fizz nothin’. Guess you best think again.”
The officer’s chagrin was complete. It was the start the outlaws had had that had beaten him. This was the wagon; this was one of the men. Of these things he was convinced. There were others in it, too, but they – . He turned to his troopers.
“I’d give a month’s pay to get bracelets on that feller,” he said with a grin that had no mirth in it. Then he added grimly, as he gazed after the receding wagon: “And I’m a Scotchman.”
CHAPTER VI
THE MAN-HUNTERS
The girl’s handsome face was turned toward the valley below her. She was staring with eyes of dreaming, half regretful, yet not without a faint light of humor, at the nestling village in the lap of the woodlands, which crowded the heart of the valley, where the silvery thread of river wound its way.
The wide foliage of the maple tree, beneath which she sat, sheltered her bare head from the burning noonday sun. And here, so high up on the shoulder of the valley, she felt there was at least air to breathe.
The book on the ground beside her had only just been laid there; its pages, wide open, had been turned face downward upon the dry, grassless patch surrounding the tree trunk.
Only a few feet away another girl, slight and fair-haired, was nimbly plying her needle upon a pile of white lawn, as to the object of which there could be small enough doubt. She was working with the care and obvious appreciation which most women display toward the manufacture of delicate underclothing.
As her companion laid her book aside and turned toward the valley, the pretty needlewoman raised a pair of gray, speculative eyes. But almost at once they dropped again to her work. It was only for a moment, however. She reached the end of her seam and began to fold the material up, and, as she did so, her eyes were once more raised in the direction of her sister, only now they were full of laughter.
“Kate,” she said, in a tone in which mirth would not be denied, “do you know, it’s five years to-day since we first came to Rocky Springs? Five years.” She breathed a profound sigh, which was full of mockery. “You were twenty-three when we came. You are twenty-eight now, and I am twenty-two. We’ll soon be old maids. The folks down there,” she went on, nodding at the village below, “will soon be speaking of us as ‘them two old guys,’ or ‘them funny old dears, the Seton sisters.’ Isn’t it awful to think of? We came out West to find husbands for ourselves, and here we are very nearly – old maids.”
Kate Seton’s eyes wore a responsive twinkle, but she did not turn.
“You’re a bit of a joke, Hel,” she replied, in the slow musical fashion of a deep contralto voice.
“But I’m not a joke,” protested the other, with pretended severity. “And I won’t be called ‘Hel,’ just because my name’s Helen. It – it sounds like the way Pete and Nick swear at each other when they’ve been spending their pay at Dirty O’Brien’s. Besides, it doesn’t alter facts at all. It won’t take much more climbing to find ourselves right on the shelf, among the frying pans and other cooking utensils. I’m – I’m tired of it – I – really am. It’s no use talking. I’m a woman, and I’d sooner see a pair of trousers walking around my house than another bunch of skirts – even if they belong to my beloved sister. Trousers go every time – with me.”
Kate withdrew her gaze from the village below and looked into her sister’s pretty face with smiling, indulgent eyes.
“Well?” she said.
The other shook her fair head. Her eyes were still laughing, but their expression did not hide the seriousness which lay behind them.
“It’s not ‘well’ at all,” she cried. She drew herself up from the ground into a kneeling position, which left her