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Updated: June 18, 2025
"You had a despatch rider in this morning. I saw him coming down the trail. Everybody saw him." Just for a moment Fyles's strong brows drew together. He was reluctant to deliberately lie to this woman. He felt that to do so was not worthy. He felt that a lie to her was a thing to be despised. "We had a patrol in," he said guardedly. Kate smiled. "A patrol from Amberley?"
The man would be forced to turn and defend himself or yield for very helplessness. The whole thing was too easy. It was absurdly easy. Nor could there be any sort of a "scrap." They were ten to one. It was disappointing. These riders of the plains reveled in a genuine fight. But Fyles's contentment suddenly received a disconcerting shock. Peter was stretching out like a greyhound.
"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.
And though Fyles's smile had broadened at the other's clumsy attempt at subterfuge, it was quite lost upon Bill in the darkness. Fyles glanced quickly at the sky. "Storm," he said. Then he turned back to his questioner. "Why, I guess I'm always chasing 'strays. They're toughs mostly pretty bad 'uns, too." Then he laughed audibly. "Makes me laugh," he went on.
In spite of all Kate had told him, in spite of her assurance that Fyles, and all the valley, believed Charlie to be the head of the smuggling gang, the full significance of Fyles's presence in the neighborhood of the pine had not penetrated to his slow understanding before. Now an added light was thrown upon the matter in a flash of greater understanding. Fyles was not watching any chance crook.
Just for an instant Charlie's face struggled with the more bitter feelings Fyles's name inspired. Then he gave way to the appeal of a sort of desperate humor, and broke into an uncontrolled fit of laughter. Bill looked on wondering, his great blue eyes widely open. Then he caught the infection, and began to laugh, too, but without knowing why.
Yes, he could understand that attitude in her. Anything he had ever seen of her pointed the big woman nature in her. She felt herself strong, and, like other strong people, it was a passion with her to help the weak and erring. Fyles's knowledge of women was slight enough, but he had that keen observation which told him many things instinctively.
It's a big cargo of rye whisky. We'll have to get busy." Stanley Fyles's extreme satisfaction was less enduring than might have been expected. Success, and the prospect of success, were matters calculated to affect him more nearly than anything else in his life.
Then, after a pause, he went on, speaking rapidly and earnestly. "See here, Miss Helen, I don't hold no brief fer nobody but myself, an' I guess that brief needs a hell of a piece of studyin' right. There's things in it I don't need to shout about, and anyway I don't fancy Fyles's long nose smudging the ink on it.
Fyles's question was one of amused speculation. "Sure," the man nodded, with a buoyant amusement in his eyes. "That, and finding some forgotten hole of a place called Rocky Springs." Fyles lifted his reins and his horse moved on. "We'd best ride together. I'm going to Rocky Springs, and you've certainly hit the trail at last."
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