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The final blue-prints, duly certified and witnessed, he took to the Recorder himself and then, still obsessed by his premonition of evil, he came back to serve notice on McBain. For every man there is always some person instinctively associated with trouble; some person that he hates beyond all bounds and reason, and intuitively fears and distrusts.
His mind had not sought out the hidden motive that lay behind what she had said; he had followed where she led and, finding her logic impregnable, had yielded like a child, in a pique. Yes, yielded out of spite without ever once thinking that she worked, day by day, for McBain. A dull rage came over him and when he roused up next morning that fixed idea was still in his brain.
"Stop right where you are!" a guard called out harshly and Rimrock halted and then he came on. "Get back or we'll shoot!" shouted a grizzled gunman who now suddenly seemed to take charge. "This claim is held by Andrew McBain and the first man that trespasses get's killed!" "Well, shoot then," panted Rimrock, still struggling up the pathway. "Go ahead it's nothing to me."
I'm going in to the mail office to run my eye over local mail. The envelopes of a local mail make good reading when a man's used to it." McBain grinned in a manner that seemed to give his hard face pain. "You get more out of the ad-dress on an envelope than any one I ever see, sir," he observed shrewdly. Fyles shrugged, not ill pleased at the compliment. "It's practice, and imagination.
He nodded as he flung off his horse and handed it over to a waiting trooper. "Where's the despatch?" he demanded sharply. McBain produced a long, official envelope. The other tore it open hastily. He ran his eyes over its contents, and passed it back to the sergeant. "Good," he exclaimed. "There's a cargo left Fort Allerton, on the American side, bound for Rocky Springs by trail.
"There's two things puzzling me about that tree, McBain," he said, following out his train of thought. "Your reckoning has justification all right. We saw enough last night for that. Besides, you have seen the same sort of thing several times before. It surely has a big play in the affairs of these 'runners. But I can't get a focus of that play.
It was the cold voice of Sergeant McBain. "The men are saddled up, sir." Fyles glanced around without changing his position. "The despatches are on the table," he replied, with a sharp inclination of the head in the direction. "Any other instructions, sir?" Fyles thought a moment. "Yes," he said at last. "When they return here it must be after dark.
Fyles and McBain leaped from their saddles and examined the sandy surface of it. Two of the troopers joined them. At length the officer spoke, and his voice had lost something of its sharp tone of authority. "They've beaten us, McBain," he cried. "God's curse on them, they've played us at our own game, and beaten us. A wagon and team's passed here less than five minutes ago.
In a moment a ring of metal was thrust into the face of the man with the paddle, and the hard voice of Sergeant McBain bade him throw up his hands. The boatman glanced swiftly about him. His evil eyes lit with a smile of appreciation as he dropped his paddle and thrust his hands high above his head. There were ten or twelve police troopers upon the bank and he was only one.
"Was he a promoted lawyer, too; or did you learn that line of talk from McBain?" "Never mind about that. You haven't answered my question. Wasn't my money just as necessary as his? It was! Yes, you know it. Well, then, why should you choose me for the very first person that you ever intentionally wronged?"
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