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Courteau, he learned, had pressed his charge with vigor, and although the two McCaskeys had maintained their outward show of reluctance at being dragged into the affair, they had, nevertheless, substantiated his statements with a thoroughness and a detail that hinted more than a little at vindictiveness.
"The fellow is a thief, a pig. He struck me. ME! You saw him. "Sure, I saw him!" the officer grinned. "I was afraid he'd miss you. Stop yelling and come along." With a nod that included the McCaskeys as well as the titled speaker he linked arms with Pierce Phillips and led the way out into the night. "W'at fool biznesse!" Doret indignantly exclaimed. "Dat boy is hones' as church."
The lieutenant answered him with some impatience: "I admit it looks fishy, but what is there to do? The colonel likes Pierce, as we all do, but he had no choice." "It's dirty frame-up." "I imagine he believes so. And yet how the deuce did that sack get where it was? I was standing alongside the McCaskeys when Courteau went up to pay his check, and I'm sure they had no part in it."
"Ye lie!" said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. "Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named." She leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below. "Jawn," said Mrs. McCaskey, softly, "I'm sorry I was hasty wid ye." "'Twas hasty puddin', as ye say," said her husband, "and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee.
Her subjugation was made complete when he led her into a box at the Rialto Theater and insisted upon the two McCaskeys joining them. The brothers at first declined, but by this time Courteau's determination carried all before it. Joe halted him outside the box door, however, to inquire into the meaning of the affair. "It means this," the Count informed him.
He went out for that purpose, but evidently he lacked courage to go through with it. Otherwise how did he come to be on the back streets? The McCaskeys live somewhere back yonder, don't they?" "Sure!" 'Poleon meditated, briefly. "Mebbe so you're right," he said, finally. "I know I'm right," Rouletta cried. "The first thing to do is find them. Where are they?" "I don' see 'em no place."
She returned with an air of triumph. "You'll learn to listen to me," she declared. "He says Hunker is low grade. That's why he lets lays on it instead of working it himself. Lars is a fox." "He said that?" "The best there is in it is wages. Those were his very words. Would you put up with Linton and Quirk and the two McCaskeys for wages? Of course not. I've something better fixed up for you."
The meeting was in session and it had been harangued into a dangerous frame of mind when Pierce Phillips and the two McCaskeys were led before it. A statement by the leader of the posse, corroborated by the owner of the missing sack of rice, roused the audience to a fury.
The officer listened to his caller's recital, and even before it was finished he had begun to dress himself in his trail clothes. "Courteau confessed, eh? And the McCaskeys have disappeared taken French leave. Say! That changes the look of things, for a fact. Of course they may have merely gone back to Hunker " "In de middle of snow-storm? Dis tam de night? No.
He and the McCaskeys were not the closest of friends, in spite of the fact that they had done him a favor a favor, by the way. for which he had paid many times over nevertheless, they were his most intimate acquaintances and he felt an urgent desire to tell them about his unusual experience. His desire to talk about the Countess Courteau was irresistible.
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