“HOW’S the woman, mavourneen?” asked Trooper Dan.
“She’s clean crazy, I think,” said his wife. “She sits there moaning
an’ wringing her hands, an’ not a word out o’ her but ‘He’s dead—he’s
dead.’ She was screaming crying a while, then laughing to herself, then
crying again, then over an’ over ‘He’s dead—he’s killed.’”
“Killed,” repeated the trooper, thoughtfully. “She said he was killed,
but not a word who killed him. Ah, well, there’s divil a doubt, I’m
feared, who ’twas did it. They’d been quarrellin’ an’ tearin’ their
throats out, an’ he’d swore he’d kill him....”
“Who swore?” interrupted his wife.
“Who but Steve Knight?” said Dan, sadly. “An’ he shlipped away from the
rest—but I mustn’t be sthandin’ talkin’ here. He bate me an’ got away
on his horse, an’ he’ll be off t’ the hills, an’ I must take after him.
I’ll go get me ridin’ things on. I must be out o’ here in fifteen
minutes.”
Mrs. Mulcahy watched him go, and then tiptoed softly across the room to
the clock, and put the hands back a good seven or eight minutes.
“Five minutes on a good horse makes a world o’ difference sometimes,”
she said to herself, and went back to the woman, who sat twisting her
fingers together and shaking her head and moaning with an empty look in
her eyes.
“You’ve been quick,” she said to Trooper Dan, as he came out buttoning
his tunic. “Quarter past when you said you’d go in fifteen minutes, and
I thought I’d have time to get you a bite o’ breakfast. You might have
time for that inside your fifteen minutes yet, though.”
Dan looked at the clock and then sharply at her, but she was busying
herself with the kettle with a face as innocent as a child’s.
“Get yourself the bread an’ the butter,” she said. “I’ll have the tea
made, and there’s a slice o’ bacon in the pan.”
“There’s hardly time for that,” he said doubtfully.
“Time—nonsense. You’ll ride the harder an’ the stronger for some food.
It’s a terrible hurry yeare in to be after poor Stevie.”
“Aye, though, if I’d my own way ... d’you think it’s pleasure I’m
takin’—you an’ yer poor Stevie?” he finished irritably. “I’ll go’n get
my saddle on an’ swallow a bite when I’m back.”
“Dan dear,” said his wife, softly, “I didn’t mean that, an’ you know
it. It’s me that knows you hate huntin’ the lad as much as I hate you
doin’ it.”
“If I was a good policeman, I wouldn’t hate me job,” said Dan, and “I’d
rather a good man than a good policeman any day,” said his wife, and
kissed him.
When he had gone she hesitated a moment, and then went and put the
clock back another few minutes. When Dan came back his breakfast was on
the table, and when he wanted to stand and drink his tea and take some
bread and bacon in his pocket, she would not hear of it, and made him
sit down.
“Get me the cartridges from the office,” he said.
“An’ ye might load the two chambers I fired.” She brought the
cartridges and broke open the revolver and extracted the empty shells.
Her fingers moved slowly, and then stopped. “I heard you shoot,” she
said. “You missed him?”
“I missed him,” he said, “be yards.”
“How could ye know it was by yards?” she asked.
“How should I not know?” he answered, with his mouth full. “Me that
took the Constable’s Cup an’ can hit a runnin’ rabbit at—well, well,
never mind that,” he finished hastily.
A smile was playing about her face, and she picked out the two
cartridges. “You missed before,” she said, with her fingers still
again. “But, Danny dear, suppose—you might meet him—it might be him or
you—you’d have to....” She twisted the things. “I just don’t like to do
it, Dan,” she said suddenly. “I know you might have to, but I’d never
have peace after, to think ’twas me loaded the gun that did it. You
might shoot him, Dan, an’....”
“Shoot him? ’Course I’ll shoot ’im first chance I get,” he said, with
mock ferocity. “I’ll shoot ’im full o’ holes as yer kitchen colander.
Don’t I owe him wan for the kiss I saw him give you before me very
eyes?”
“You saw that?” she said defiantly. “An’ you might have seen the one I
gave him back. Ye owe him one for that, Danny, an’ of course you owe
him nothin’ for ridin’ fifty mile through the rains an’ swimmin’ the
Staked Crossin’ in a ragin’ flood to bring the doctor to poor little
Danny, that wouldn’t be with us now but for him.”
“Be quiet, woman,” said Dan, fiercely. “Is it wi’ that in my heart ye’d
send me out to meet a man I may have to shoot or be shot by? ’Tis a
nice choice, too.”
He finished his breakfast and stood up. “Ye’ll stay by the woman an’
watch her careful,” he said. “Will ye manage that all right? Keep her
to her bed, or make her lie down on the sofy. She can’t well go back to
her home while _he’s_ bein’ got ready. She’s crazy enough now, poor
thing.”
“Her child was to be born in a month or so, Dan,” she said, with tears
trembling in her eyes. “She might never get her senses back after a
shock like that at such a time.”
“I’ll telegraph to the doctor when I go,” he said, “an’ I must be
wirin’ to headquarters. They’ll likely be sending a sergeant and
another man or two to help fetch him in.”
“I can get one of the neighbours in to help me if need be,” she said.
“Maybe I’d better get Mrs. Wilson now.”
“Maybe ye had,” he said hesitatingly. “An’ you must listen careful what
Mistress Durgan says—an’ if she mentions Ste—, any name, you ought to
write it down, maybe. It might be if she didn’t pull through that you’d
have to go in the witness box and swear to who she said it was did it.”
“Me swear Steve Knight’s neck into a noose!” she said. “It’s likely
now, isn’t it?”
“They’d make ye go in the box,” he said. “An’ they’d make me say if I
warned ye to write down anything she said, an’ me bein’ a constable an’
knowin’, ye see....”
“I see, Dan,” she said. “I’ll write down everything, never fear. You
can swear you told me to. I’ll write now what she’s said.” She sprang
up and got a piece of paper and pencil. “‘He’s dead’ an’ ‘he’s killed,’
that’s all she’s said till now.”
“Are ye sure—about the ‘killed,’ mavourneen?” he said slowly. “It
doesn’t mean just the same....”
“Of course not,” she said hastily, and tore the paper to little shreds.
“I never heard such a word. Whatever did you put that in my head for?”
“It just shows the need of writin’ things down,” he said severely. “An’
if Mrs. Wilson’s by when she says anything, ye needn’t mention to her
about writin’ down. Just slip away an’....”
“I’ll not get Mrs. Wilson,” said his wife, quickly. “There’s not a soul
will come nigh or near her till the doctor comes. An’ who can say
there’s anyone better fitted to nurse a sick woman an’ take her
evidence down than the constable’s wife?”
“’Tis yersilf that’s the treasure, jewell o’ me heart,” said Trooper
Dan, kissing her warmly. “An’ who knows but that atween us—but it’s
black enough an’ clear enough the case looks, widout any swearin’ from
you or me, I doubt, I doubt.”
He went out, and Mrs. Mulcahy went softly into the bedroom where the
woman lay, moaning and twisting her fingers and plucking at the
coverlet. “He’s dead,” she whispered.
“Hush, dearie,” said Mrs. Mulcahy, soothingly. “Lie still and forget
everything. Think only on the baby that’s comin’.” “He’s dead—he’s
killed, killed, killed.” Mrs. Dan Mulcahy hushed her again and laid
gentle fingers on her lips. Then she went and fetched a slip of paper
and the pencil. “I ought to write it down,” she said, and wrote
carefully “He is dead. He is dead, dead, dead.” She looked at the
writing a moment and then thoughtfully crossed it out. “The baby is
dead, dead, dead,” she wrote again. “It was the baby we were talking
about. She must be clean crazed, for how could she say the baby was
dead? Any court would see that,” and Mrs. Trooper Dan Mulcahy carefully
folded the paper and slipped it in her bodice.
Up and down the track across the hills a string of men clambered and
bumped and pounded, the stones rattling under the horses’ hoofs and the
sand whirling behind them.
Some of the men rode swaying in the saddle, and some with drowsy heads
hanging, but Aleck Gault and Whip Thompson sat with their shoulders
hunched and their heads crouched forward, and keen eyes set on the
difficult track. They plunged down the stony dips, the horses at times
sitting back almost on their haunches, and sliding down with the loose
rocks and dirt rolling and cascading around them; they drove headlong
across the patches of open, picking their way amongst the rabbit
burrows and paddy-melon holes without checking their stride; they
spurred up the rises, the horses’ heads outstretched and their sides
heaving, swept over the crests, and went swooping down the hills again.
Far behind them came Darby the Bull, his simple mind in a whirl of
dismay and anger with himself. He couldn’t rightly understand what it
was all about, or how he had said anything that betrayed Steve, but
Whip and the others had assured him with vituperative emphasis that he
had “blown the whole show,” had laid the hounds straight on the scent,
had given Trooper Dan no choice of thought or action but against Steve
Knight. Darby the Bull couldn’t understand all this, but he could
understand the simple fact that his mates were riding to help Steve and
to defeat the police, and that his (Darby’s) help might be useful and
his bull strength most acceptable. So Darby pounded along over rock and
ridge and hollow, his heels banging his horse’s flanks and his knees
gripped tight to the saddle. It seemed to him that it was madness to be
galloping the horses this way, besides being cruel to them. But Aleck
Gault and Whip were ahead of him, and they had told him to keep up if
he could. That was plain enough, and any man could understand. All he
had to do was follow and keep as near as his horse would take him; so
he wrenched the brute’s head up when he stumbled and flung himself
recklessly down the steep drops. He lost sight of them when they dived
into the Axe-Cut—the steep bit of track that drove straight into the
face of the “Wall-of-a-House” cliff, and made a narrow gorge, which
offered the only way up the cliff for three or four hours’ ride round
either way.
When Darby got to the top of the Axe-Cut a loud coo-ee made him look
round, and he saw Gault and Whip Thompson hard at work lifting rocks
and carrying them to the edge of the gorge and piling them in a heap
there. He swung his horse round and joined them, and Whip called to him
to hurry up and put his back into it. Darby didn’t trouble to ask
questions, but merely set himself to lift and carry the biggest rocks
he could move. One by one the other men joined them, and as soon as the
last man was through Gault set them to rolling the stones over. There
was a drop of about thirty to forty feet down to the path at the spot
they had chosen, and although some of the boulders they flung over
smashed to fragments, they gradually piled up till they formed a
barrier utterly impassable to a horse and difficult to a footman.
“That’ll do, boys, I reckon,” said Aleck Gault at last, and Darby the
Bull sat down and mopped his streaming brow.
“What’s the notion?” he asked, with a puzzled frown. “We’ll never be
able to take the short cut to the township till we’ve shifted that. An’
there’s no other way for miles roun’.”
“We won’t be able to ride down, and Trooper Dan Mulachy won’t be able
to ride up,” said Aleck, while the men grinned at Darby. “And Trooper
Dan’s on one side of that heap of stones and Steve Knight’s on the
other. Do you see it, Darby?”
A slow grin spread over Darby’s face, and he smacked a huge palm on his
thigh with a report like a gun. “Haw, haw, haw,” he guffawed. “’Course
I see it. It’s dead simple,” and he laughed loudly again.
“Now, boys,” said Aleck, “we can just ride on slow and taking it easy.
Steve will have made for the Ridge first, or I miss my guess. But _we_
don’t want to see him there, and we’ve no idea of his being there if
any inquisitive policeman come poking questions at us. Do you
understand, Darby?—Steve hasn’t been to the Ridge far as we know.”
“But you just said ...” began Darby, with a puzzled frown.
“Oh, Lord,” groaned Aleck. “Here, do you understand this? If
anybody—policemen or plain-clothes men—anybody walking on two legs,
asks you if Steve has been to the Ridge since we all left it, you tell
them you don’t know—you haven’t seen him, or heard word of him, or a
guess about him, since he rode out of Connor’s Leap. See that?”
“I see that,” said Darby, slowly. “But if they ask me what I think
about it myself....”
“If anybody asks you anything about Steve,” broke in Whip Thompson,
“you just tell ’em to go t’ blazes.”
“That’s all right,” said Darby, brightening visibly. “I can do that o’
course—that’s simple.”
“Come on, boys,” said Aleck again, “and we’ll stop for an hour at The
Trickle, and anyone that wants it can have a snooze. I guess there’s
some here could do with it.”
“I could do with a drink,” said Blazes, plaintively. “I wish we’d some
o’ that beer we was so everlastin’ extryavagant wi’ last night.”
“Tap another barrel, for the well’s gone dry,” hummed Never-Never, and
they rode slowly off.
“Why did you think Steve will have made for the Ridge, Aleck?” asked
Ned Gunliffe, as they rode together.
“Because for one thing I had a word in his ear while Mulachy was
speaking to him,” said Aleck, “and I know he’ll want to see——” he broke
off and glanced sharply at Ned Gunliffe, cleared his throat and
finished “see about some tucker and so on. He’ll want that of course,
as he’ll have to keep clear of stores till he’s clear away.”
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————