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He saw those words, in letters three inches high, flaming across the top of the front page. When the pleasant far-away voice of the operator said: "New York Eagle" Jimmy barked: "'Lo Ann, gimme the city desk quick, will you." "Mr. Hite's wire is busy, will you wait a minute, Mr. Hale?" "Can't Ann. I got to catch the home, put whoever Hite's talkin' to on another wire and gimme the chief."
Hunch or flash, whatever it was, it was undoubtedly something. He started swiftly for the hotel in Lentone, where many of the newspaper representatives congregated. If anyone among them knew of something to justify Hite's excitement, he would show it in some way. There would be a tension, a restlessness that would give the secret away.
There was a palpable dismay on Constant Hite's expressive face. He had hoped that the verdict might be death by accident. Others had expected the implication of horse-thieves, of whose existence the jury being of the neighborhood were well advised, and the disappearance of the man's horse might well suggest this explanation.
Naturally they were very much puzzled over his non-appearance. It got quite cold that night, and we were glad to have shelter of Hite's hospitable roof. In our trip down the river to this point we had seemed to keep even with the first cold weather.
"Kem down," he said gruffly, clearing his throat in embarrassment. "Kem down, Constant. No use roustin' out the old folks." "What do you want?" asked Hite in a low voice, his heart seeming to stand still in suspense. The constable hesitated. The cold rain dashed into Hite's face. The rail fences, in zigzag lines, were coming into view.
The first voice was Ann's, the second Hite's. "Say, Jimmy, I got an idea. You know there's bootlegging in Canada. Fact is where sale of liquor is permitted up to certain hours, there are birds who sell it after hours and are subject to fine and imprisonment mebbe.
Martha came to the door and told Jimmy that he was wanted on the telephone. She also emphatically gave it as her opinion that a man who spoke as did the caller on the telephone was no gentleman. With the utterance of his "Hello," Hite's growl came over the wire. "The way you act anyone would think that you were on a vacation. Where the hell were you?
"No, certainly not," said the man of science, surprised, and marking the eager, insistent look in Hite's eyes. Both horses were at a standstill now. A jay-bird clanged out its wild woodsy cry from the dense shadows of a fern-brake far in the woods on the right, and they heard the muffled trickling of water, falling on mossy stones hard by, from a spring so slight as to be only a silver thread.
Since Ben's report of the reconnoitring interview on which she had sent him in Con Hite's interest, she had dismissed the idea that Selwyn was in aught concerned with the traveler's sudden and violent death; and she did not incline easily to the substituted suspicion that the dead man was a "revenuer," and that Selwyn had written to him to recommend the investigation of Con Hite, whose implication in moonshining he had some cause to divine.
Jimmy was about to hang up the receiver, when Hite's harsh growl cut in: "Wait a minute, Jimmy. I was listening in. You gave me an idea. We can and will, of course, verify these two deaths, but it would be swell if Professor Brierly were here. Could you persuade him to come down here to give us the benefit of his experience and advice?" "I don't know, chief.
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