CHAPTER FOUR: THE END OF THE TRAIL
Ruth Hammerton hurried into her father's study on her return from thepost-office, whither she had fared for the evening mail.
Her dark face was aglow with a colour that had been foreign to it formany a long week--a colour that softened and mellowed the new lines ofleanness and of sorrow in cheek and brow. Her eyes were alight withnervous eagerness.
Mr. Hammerton looked up in surprise from a heap of papers on his desk,as his daughter burst so unceremoniously in upon him. A month earlierhe had been appointed local justice of the peace. His new duties stillcalled for much night work, in the way of study and preparation forthe next day's court duties. So it was with a slight frown that hegreeted this sudden interruption of his labours.
"I've just come from the post-office!" began Ruth eagerly. "As I wascoming out two men almost bumped into me. I looked back, as theyslouched into the store and sat down by the stove. They had a hugebulldog at their heels. I heard one of the loafers there hail them byname. They were Con Hegan and Billy Gates. A boy told me they hadcome back to Boone Lake to-day. He said it was their first visit heresince they got out of prison. He----"
"Pshaw!" fumed Hammerton. "So those two crooks are back here, arethey? That means more lawlessness! Just as I was congratulating myselfthat it was becoming a law-abiding and decent community at last! Iwish----"
"You don't understand!" broke in the girl. "You don't see what I mean.You don't get the significance of it. And yet I've been all over itwith you so often! I----"
"Over what?" demanded Hammerton, nettled by her air of excitedmystery. "Please explain what you're driving at. I'm tremendously busyto-night and----"
"Michael Trent was the means of Hegan and Gates going to prison," shehurried on. "They swore they would get him for it. We have proof ofthat. The very night after they were set free Michael disappeared. Andnow they are back here again, after four months! Don't you see----"
"I see you are trying to lure me into that same endless old argumentagain," returned Hammerton with a glance of regret at his piled-upwork. "But really, I can't see why these two jailbirds' appearance intown to-night should have flustered you so. There was no foul playconnected with Trent's disappearance. I've explained that to you,over and over. Calvin Greer called him up on the telephone thatevening. Trent told Calvin he was sick of Boone Lake and that he wasstarting off on a long motor tour up country. He said if he liked itup there he'd settle somewhere in the north counties and never comeback. Next day he and his automobile were gone. Where is the mystery?"
"Where?" she repeated miserably. "Why, everywhere! The whole thing isa mystery. In the first place, I rode over to see Calvin Greer, at hisstock farm. He had never met Michael till that day, and he wasn't atall familiar with Michael's voice. But he told me it sounded rougherand hoarser over the phone than when he talked to him face to face.And he----"
"That's no proof. Many people's voices sound altogether different overthe phone. Or Trent may have had a cold. There's no mystery about it,I tell you. Most assuredly there's nothing to connect Hegan and Gateswith the affair. As to----"
"You knew Michael," she went on. "You knew him well and you liked him.Tell me, was he the sort of man to go away like that and not have thecourtesy to say good-bye to us? Was he? He stopped here--he andBuff--you remember, on his way home from the market square thatevening. He sat and chatted with us for half an hour or so. He didn'tsay a word about going away. Instead, he arranged to go horsebackriding with me the next day. Yet less than half an hour later,apparently, he tells Calvin Greer he's leaving Boone Lake--perhapsforever. Is that----"
"Men do queer things," said Hammerton, turning back to his papers. "Ican't agree with you that there's any mystery about it, daughter.Certainly no mystery that would justify the law in suspecting----"
"You know what care he took of his livestock," pursued Ruth. "Is itlikely--is it possible--that he would have left his sheep and cattleto starve, his cows unmilked and his horses with empty mangers? Wouldhe have gone away like that, of his own accord, and let all hislivestock starve to death? For they would have starved to death outthere on that solitary farm if you and I hadn't gone to get them andbring them here."
"That's the only part of the whole thing that I can't understand,"assented Hammerton. "He treated his livestock as other people treattheir pets. It wasn't like him to leave them to starve. Out there theymight have gone hungry till they died before any neighbour would havebeen likely to happen in and find them. Even if he hadn't been so fondof them, it doesn't make sense for a man to leave such valuableproperty to die of neglect. To say nothing of the ruin of his year'scrops through his absence. Why, if you hadn't wheedled me into havinghis crops looked after, the year would have been a total loss to hisfarm. As it is----"
"Then," she declared triumphantly, "since you admit he wouldn't havedone such a thing of his own accord----"
"I don't admit it. I only say I can't understand it. But it happened.We have proof of that. He went away in his car. And he took Buff alongwith him. If he had left Buff there I could have seen, perhaps, wherethe mystery came in. For he and that collie were chums. But he tookBuff with him. And he took along everything of portable value in hishouse, too. No, that doesn't look like foul play. He did itdeliberately, whatever his motive may have been. Took along his dogand his valuables and drove away in his own car. The car couldn't havebeen stolen, either. For he told Greer over the phone----"
"If it was Michael who told----"
"We don't know his motive," summed up Hammerton. "But we do know hewent of his own accord. There is ample proof of that. As forconnecting Gates and Hegan with----"
"He did not go of his own accord!" announced the girl, deathly white,her eyes ablaze, as she towered over her wondering father. "And Ihave every reason to know he didn't. I don't want to tell why I knowit. But I must, if I want you to get the truth out of those twoassassins. I know Michael Trent did not leave here of his own accord.I know it because he loved me. A man doesn't run away like thatfrom----"
"What?" shouted Hammerton in astonishment. "He--you say he----"
"I say he loved me," reiterated the girl, her sweet voice held steadyby a great effort. "And no man will go away willingly from a woman heloves as Michael loved me. Most of all, he won't go away and fail tosend any kind of word."
"You never told me!" accused her father indignantly. "You never----"
"Michael never told me," she retorted.
"Then how----"
"He never told me in so many words," she went on. "Yet I knew it. Awoman always knows. He loved me. And he was waiting until he could puthis farm on a better paying basis before he told me of it. Now,perhaps, you'll believe me when I say he'd never have gone away likethat unless he had been kidnapped or killed."
Long and silently Hammerton stared at his daughter, dazed by therevelation. Then he said, hesitantly:
"If I'd known--if you had told me--but----"
"But now that you do know," she persisted, "you'll get the truth fromHegan and Gates? You'll start the machinery of the law to working;and----"
"Dear," he said gently, "there's nothing I can do. There is no shadowof proof that either of those men was concerned in----"
"As you choose!" she exclaimed, turning to leave the room. "Since youwon't interrogate them, I am going to. I'm going back to thepost-office to find them. If they aren't there, I'm going to findwhere they live and go----"
"Are you crazy?" stormed Hammerton, jumping up to bar her way. "Yousurely can't mean to do an insane thing like that! I won't permit it!"
"Then interrogate them yourself, as a magistrate of this county!" shebade him. "Because if you don't do it, I shall. If it is insane, letit be insane. In these past months I have had enough to drive a wiserwoman insane. I love Michael Trent. I _love_ him, I tell you! And ifhe is on earth I shall find him, now that I have a clue."
Hammerton stared wonderingly down upon his wontedly placid daughter.Then he caught her into his arms and held
her close to his heart for amoment. Releasing her, he crossed to the telephone and called up RoySaunders, the Boone Lake chief of police.
"Saunders?" he queried. Then: "Judge Hammerton speaking. Hegan andGates are in town again. I want a talk with them. You'll find them atthe post-office. Will you bring them up here to my study? As soon asyou can, please? No, there's no warrant out for them. But I don'tthink they'll be fools enough to refuse to come here. Thanks."
He set down the telephone and passed his arm again round the girl.Ruth, her self-control giving way, wept convulsively on his breast.
"There! There!" Hammerton murmured. "Try to get hold of yourself,darling! They'll be here in a few minutes. And our one chance is tokeep cool. I--I haven't much faith in our success with them. It's onlyfair to tell you that, Ruth. And I've no legal right to question themat all. I'm doing it to save you from doing it. Try to be brave, ifnothing comes of our talk with them."
Airily, not to say jauntily, Con Hegan and Billy Gates strolled up thevillage street and into the highroad leading to the Hammerton place.To one side of the unconcerned pair strode Saunders, the truculent butpuzzled chief of police.
The men had grinned mirthfully at Saunders' command that theyaccompany him to the magistrate's home. They had complied without asingle demur. And they lightened the tedium of the walk by guying thepompous police chief in a way that reduced him to sullen homicidalyearnings.
Marshalled by Saunders, they lounged through the doorway in the wakeof a servant and were ushered into Hammerton's study at the extremerear of the house.
They found Hammerton seated at his desk, looking very magisterialindeed. At a far end of the room, her face in the shadows, sat Ruth.
"Here they are, Your Honour!" proclaimed the chief of police, ranginghis two grinning charges side by side in front of the desk.
"Yep," cheerily assented Hegan. "Here we are, Judge. We was planningto bolt. But this vigilant chief kind of overawed us. We was afraid hemight cry if we stood him on his head and lit out."
"Or," supplemented Gates, "he'd maybe have hit one of us a crool slapon the wrist as we run past him. Or he might go to where we live andbust one of our umbrellas, to punish us. So we stuck."
"The judge looks pretty near as terrifyin' as the chief," confidedHegan to his companion in a loud whisper and shaking with simulatedawe. "Most likely he keeps a 'lectric chair in his kitchen. We'd bestbe p'lite to him."
Hammerton checked an angry forward movement on the part of Saundersand addressed the grinning prisoners.
"I have no legal right to enforce replies to the questions I am goingto ask you," he said quietly. "But it is only fair to tell you whatrights I do possess. It is within my jurisdiction to commit you both,here and now, for vagrancy, since you have no visible means of supportin this village. And before the thirty-day vagrancy term can expirethere will be some new charge. So, to avoid these annoyances, I adviseyou to wipe those grins off your faces and to drop the attempt toinsult anyone here and to answer the questions I shall put to you.Otherwise, you will leave here with handcuffs on and will proceed tothe lock-up; thence to come before me in the morning on a vagrancycharge."
The men looked at each other uncertainly. Gates seemed to be measuringthe distance to the study door. Unobtrusively, Hammerton took a pistolfrom the drawer of his desk and laid it in his lap. Instantly the twomen stiffened and lost their jauntily insolent manner.
"There's no call to threaten us, Judge," said Hegan, nervously. "We'reglad to answer any questions you care to spring on us. As forvagrancy--well, we're no vags. We just got home to-day and, of course,we haven't had time to look round us for any steady work yet.But----"
"You were let out of Logan Prison on the twenty-sixth of last July,"interposed Hammerton. "Where did you go from there? I mean as soon asyou were let out."
"We went straight to Paterson," returned Hegan. "We got out of Loganat ten, on the morning of the twenty-sixth. We took the noon train toPaterson. We got work there and we stayed on the job till yesterday,when the works shut down for the winter. Then we come back here."
"You hadn't been here since you were sent to prison?"
"Not till we got here this morning from Paterson. No, Judge."
"H'm! You were not here on the twenty-seventh of July? You are certainof that?"
"Certain sure, Judge!" declared Gates. "We wouldn't be likely toforget if we had. This is our home town. We was kind of ashamed tocome back, right off, after they turned us loose from the hoosgow. Sowe----"
"You have not been in or near Boone Lake since you were released fromprison--until to-day?" insisted Hammerton.
"No, Your Honour, we ain't. And we c'n prove it. We went straight toPaterson; and there we----"
"Then," spoke up Ruth, coming forward, "how did two reputablewitnesses happen to see you at Mr. Michael Trent's farm late on theafternoon of July twenty-seventh?"
Hegan gulped. Gates, however, answered suavely:
"Flash your witnesses on us, ma'am. If they seen us here or in thiscounty that day they sure got good eyes. They----"
"Yep!" supplemented Hegan. "Who's your witnesses? Who are they?"
Hammerton and Saunders were looking at the troubled girl in surprise.With true feminine quibble for truth, she had put the statement in theform of a query in speaking of the witnesses whose identity she hadjust invented. The failure of her ruse distressed her keenly, evenwhile the memory of Hegan's start and his scared gulp made her doublycertain she was on the right track.
"Guess you never took a course of poker playing, at school, ma'am,"chuckled Gates, reading her face with all the trained skill of a truepanhandler.
"Shut up, you!" grunted Saunders in wrath.
He glowered upon the suave Gates, who promptly turned his respectfulgaze to the magistrate's face. Hammerton, frowning perplexedly,opened his lips for further query, even while he realised the utteruselessness of trying to catch such skilled offenders by any questionshe might have the wit to frame.
Before he could speak a maid rushed wildly into the room. With amanifest effort, she came to a halt inside the doorway and stood asthough trying to announce some guest. But the guest himself enteredthe room, close at her heels.
* * * * *
Steadily, through the gathering darkness, Buff had run, his first madpace settling down into the choppy little mile-eating stride of thetrotting wolf pack. And so he kept on, ever headed for Boone Lake,moving swervelessly and with deceptive quickness.
Stars came out. A fat moon began to butt its way up over the easternhorizon mists. Here and there, as the pad-pad-pad of the collie'stireless feet pattered along the frozen road, a farm dog would barkchallenge or dart out in pursuit. But no challenge bark checked Buff'sobsessed flight. Nor did any of the pursuing curs catch up with him.
Now and then, along the state road, motor cars would meet or pass him.The dog moved aside barely far enough to miss the whirring wheels, butdid not falter in his run.
Once, as he padded through a village, some fool, catching sight ofhim, noted his tense pose and the arrow-like straightness of hiscourse and raised the shout of "Mad dog!"
This asinine cry lurks ever in the back of the human throat, ready andeager to spring into life at the slightest provocation. And woe to theharmlessly running or perhaps sick dog at whom it is howled! At oncethe hue-and-cry is ready to start in murderous pursuit. No question isasked. Nobody stops to realise that there are probably not twoactually rabid dogs in any one state in the Union in the course of anytwo years, and that a genuinely hydrophobic dog is no more incondition to chase and attack people than is a typhoid patient.
But in Buff's case the shout was raised too late. The tawny-and-whiteshape sped on through the dim moonlight and out of sight before thehue-and-cry was fairly up. And he did not so much as glance back tonote the progress of the useless pursuit.
As he turned off the state road, taking the macadam byway which ledtowards Trent's farm, the collie dropped to a wavering halt, h
issensitive nostrils pulsing. A scent had come to him, though it wasstill too elusive to register clearly in the eager brain.
Twenty doubtful steps Buff took along the byway, until he came to apoint where a field path from a cross-road a mile away intersected it.At the intersection the scent struck him with a force that dizziedhim. Nostrils to earth, he found that a man had left this path for thebyroad not ten minutes earlier.
The knowledge did amazing things to the dog. For an instant heshivered as though with a physical convulsion. His breath came in longgasps. A whine in his throat shook itself forth in an eerie note thatbelonged to no normal beast.
Then, like a whirlwind, he was off, down the byway; nose to earth,body flat and flying. Half a mile farther on, the rush of his madlyscampering feet came to the ears of a man who was plodding wearilytoward the farm--a man thin and shabby, who walked as thoughcompleting an exhausting journey. In the middle of the road the manpaused and glanced back. Adown the moonlit byway was dashing atawny-and-white creature, flat to earth in its speed.
Fifty yards from the man Buff lifted his head as he galloped. Thescent--any dog's strongest quality--told him he might now rely onsight, which is the weakest of a dog's senses. At what he saw, thecollie gave tongue.
Not in the hideous wolf howl or in whimper did Buff speak now, but ina cry that was human and rending--a cry that tore at the listener'sheartstrings by reason of its awful intensity.
Delirious--screaming, writhing, panting--Buff flung himself on the manhe had tracked. He was at the end of the trail! And what he foundthere drove him quite insane.
Up into Michael Trent's dusty arms the dog sprang--a vibrant mass ofmad ecstasy. Moaning, crying, sobbing like a human child, Buff soughtto lick his master's haggard face and to pat him in a hundred placesat once with the whirling paws.
Almost thrown off his balance by the impact, Trent spoke to the colliein wondering delight. And the sound of the tired voice sent Buff intoa new frenzy of rapture. Dropping to earth, he whizzed round and roundTrent in a bewildering gyroscopic flight, stomach to ground, tongueand throat clamorous with hoarse joy.
Presently, flinging himself at his master's feet, the dog lay there,moaning and sobbing, his swift tongue caressing the man's dusty shoes,his furry body quivering from nose to tail in hysterical bliss. Therehe lay while Trent leaned over and laid both calloused hands on hishead, stroking him and talking to him in the pleasant, slow tones thecollie loved.
"Buff!" muttered the man, swallowing hard. "_Buff!_ Why, I didn'tthink anyone on earth cared that much about anything! Come up here,old friend! You're shaking as if you had ague. How did you find me?Have you been waiting at home for me ever since? Or have you beenliving with--with her?"
Buff, his paroxysm spent, crouched at Trent's feet, his silken headpressed against his master's knee, his upraised eyes scanning theman's face in adoration. From time to time he shivered and moaned.
He had come to the end of the trail--the gloriously happy end of thehorrible long trail. And he understood now why his queer sixth sensehad summoned him hither, from the far-off farm where for weeks he hadlived so placidly. The master-call had come to him. He had obeyed it.For it had been stronger than he.
And it had led him to his god. That was all Buff knew or cared toknow.
And now, still talking to his dog, still petting him, Michael Trenttook up again his homeward trudge. But there was life in his step.Fatigue seemed to have fallen away from him. The ludicrous worship ofa dog had somehow made life over and had changed depression to hope.
Following his old custom--immemorial among lonely men who owndogs--Trent talked to Buff as they went along, as though to anotherhuman--knowing the collie could not get the sense of one word in ten,yet glad to have this vent for his own yearning for expression.
"The start of it all is pretty hazy to me, Buff," he rambled on, inthe soft monotone that was music to the dog. "I saw Hegan and Gates inthe doorway. One minute I was fighting with them. The next minute Iwas in the smelly fo'cas'le of a tramp steamship. I was sick. And Iwas aching all over. I had been shanghaied. The next three months wereunadulterated hell. We were bound for Honolulu by way of the Horn,Buff. And the crew was only one degree better than the captain and themate. Let's let it go at that.
"A chap named Carney and I got to be pals. We broke ship togetherat San Francisco on the way back. And we made most of thetranscontinental trip on brake beams. Brake beams aren't flowery bedsof ease, Buff. Keep off them. Carney had got a bit of the story aboutme, from a man who was the mate's pal between voyages. It seems afellow who was in prison down at Logan with Gates and Hegan helpedthem engineer my shanghaiing. He told them where to take me. And theyloaded me on a launch of his, down the river to the harbour and soldme to the captain. He was just weighing anchor. And he wasshort-handed.
"Hegan and Gates were planning to keep me out of the way and to letmy stock starve and my crops go to wrack--as most likely they have,for nobody was likely to get to our out-of-the-way farm in time toprevent it. Then they were going to lay low for a few months, andafter that they were coming back to Boone Lake and set fire to thehouse and barns. Most likely they've done it before now. Nicehome-coming, hey, Buff? We're dead broke, most likely, you and I. Butwe've got each other, anyhow. And that's more than I dared hope for."
He was turning in at the gateway of his farm as he finished therambling tale. Buff thrust his nose into his master's hand and whinedsoftly. Then, in a trice the collie had stiffened to attention anddarted forward through the shadows towards a patch of white thatemerged from the darkness of the dooryard.
When Gates and Hegan came home to Boone Lake that day they broughtwith them a new possession in the shape of a mongrel bulldog of hugeproportions and with a local fame for being one of the "dirtiest"fighters that ever set upon a weaker foe. Planning to carry out theiramiable intent of firing Trent's house and barns late in the night,they had stationed this dog in their victim's dooryard that evening,to scare off any possible tramp or other intruder who might beintending to make the deserted house a resting place. They had nodesire for such witnesses; the penalty for arson being somewhatdrastic in their home state.
It was this guardian dog that came tearing forward now to repel thetwo intruders, as Trent and Buff turned into the dooryard. Buff,guessing his ferocious intent and resenting another and hostile dog'spresence in his own beloved bailiwick, flew eagerly to meet him. Aninstant later the two beasts came together with a clash; and a rightenergetic dog fight was raging at Trent's feet.
Buff, for all his fury, fought with brain as well as brawn, againsthis heavier assailant.
There never yet was a bulldog that could, in the open, seize a colliethat was aware of his assault and that wished to elude it.
Buff nimbly sprang aside as the bulldog rushed and let the otherhurtle past him. But the bulldog did not go scatheless. As he lumberedpast, a slash from Buff's curved eyetooth ploughed a long and deep redfurrow along his shoulder and back. And, as he turned, Buff's slashlaid open a similar cut at one side of the enemy's stomach. The colliedanced out of reach of the clashing jaws that sought to grab himbefore he could jump back.
When the jaws clamped together the collie's throat was not there. Evenas his opponent struck a second time Buff flung himself on the groundand dived for the heavy forelegs in front of him.
Buff's teeth closed on the bulldog's right foreleg. And, but for hisown strong strain of collie blood, the fight must have ended then andthere. For a bulldog would have gained this foreleg grip and wouldhave hung onto it, heedless of the fact that his own spine and theback of his neck were within easy reach of the foe.
Wherefore, merely giving the forefoot an agonising bite as he went, hecontinued his diving rush. Under and between the bowed forelegs of thebulldog he slipped, eel-like, in swift elusiveness, slashing theother's underbody again as he went, and emerged safe on the far sideof the enemy.
Back and forth over the frost-slippery, moon-lit grass raged thefight, the frantic clawing of feet a
nd Buff's own staccato snarls andthe thud of clashing bodies alone breaking the night silences. Twicethe bulldog well-nigh secured his coveted throat hold--a hold thatmust speedily have left Buff gasping out his life through a severedjugular.
A third time the bulldog charged for the throat. Buff reared, twistingsidewise to avoid the charge and at the same time to counter on thepanting and lumbering body. But he did not take account of theslipperiness of the frosty, dead grass.
The collie's hind legs slid from under him. Down he went, asprawl onhis back, under this sudden loss of his precarious balance. As quickas a cat he had spun to his feet again. But the instant of wasted timehad sufficed for the enemy.
The bulldog, lunging murderously for the exposed throat, missed hismark by reason of Buff's swirling motion of scrambling to his feetagain. Yet this time the ravening jaws did not close on air or on fur.Instead they buried themselves in Buff's upper right foreleg, almostat the junction of leg and body.
Helpless to break free, Buff ceased to thrash about. He felt thelocked jaws begin to grind, deep and deeper towards the bone. He felthis enemy's braced pressure brought to bear upon the imperilledforeleg.
Then his wolf brain told him what to do. He struck straight for thenose and upper jaw of the bulldog. He did not slash, as does a collie.He bent down and secured his grip as would a bulldog.
The bulldog, his own hold secure in the collie's upper foreleg, wasaware of a terribly painful grip on his tender nose, a grip that waxedsterner and more tense all the time, a grip also that was shutting offhis breathing power.
In the anguish of choking, the bulldog let go Buff's foreleg andshook himself furiously to get free of that encumbering hold. As heshook he gave tone, emitting a most horrendous yell of pain and rage.
Then for the first time Trent was able in the elusive moonlight andshadow bars to see how the fight was going or to intervene withoutperil of injuring his own dog. But as he bent down to drag thesquirming bulldog away he saw he was too late. Buff's grinding jawshad found the jugular. The fight was over. The victor stood up,panting and weary, and looked down at the inert mass that had solately been a mighty fighting machine.
Half an hour later, shaved and clean, Michael Trent set forth for RuthHammerton's home. Buff, wholly rested from his battle, trotted happilyat his master's heels. The maid at Hammertons' gaped wordlessly atsight of the visitor.
Buff, as politeness bade him, wagged his tail and took a step towardsher. The maid, by nature, was built for endurance rather than speed.Yet, recovering from her shock, she jumped at least a foot from theveranda floor; and she made a sound better fitted to a turkey whosetail feathers have been grabbed than to a decorous household servant.
After which she bolted into the house and down the hall towards thestudy. Trent hesitated as to whether or not he ought to follow. ButBuff took matters into his own hands. At the opening of the front doorhe caught the scent of Hammerton's two convict visitors. And down thelong hall he went like a thunderbolt.
Trent, in consternation, dashed after him. But he did not catch upwith the collie until Buff halted, perforce, at the doorway which themaid's ample body was just then blocking. As he strove to wriggle pastinto the room Trent came alongside and seized the inexplicably exciteddog firmly by the collar. This precaution saved the life of Con Hegan,who chanced to be standing nearest to the door.
It was Billy Gates who broke the brief spell. Even as Ruth startedforward, with a choking little cry, towards Trent, the convict's nerveand brain suddenly collapsed. Waving a tremulous arm at the ragingBuff, Gates babbled in horror:
"Take him away! For the Lord's sake, take him away! That's no dog!It's a devil! A--a ghost! I--I shot him and I buried him in a--aforty-foot well with a rope and a stone on his neck! Take him away!He's come back for me!"
At a nod from Hammerton the chief of police shoved Hegan into anadjoining room. Then, wheeling on the gibbering and helpless Gates,Trent said sternly:
"Now, talk! The whole truth, mind you, unless you want me to letthis--this ghost loose at you! _Talk!_"
And Gates talked. Drunk with superstitious horror, he talked andcontinued to talk. Even the sight of Hammerton taking swift notes didnot deter him.
As the chief of police strutted back to the lock-up, propelling hishandcuffed prisoners before him, he tried hard not to look at a shadedcorner of the moonlit veranda--a corner wherein a maid and a man wereseated very close together, with a big collie curled up in drowsycontentment at their feet.