THE WHITE HORSE SKIN
Curiosity held Jessica until the evangelist closed his melodeon
preparatory to a descent upon the dance-hall. Then, thinking of the
growing dark with some trepidation--for the recent "strike" had brought
its influx of undesirable characters to the town--she started toward the
mountain.
Ahead of her a muffled puff-puff sounded, and the dark bulk of an
automobile--the sheriff's, the only one the town of Smoky Mountain
boasted--was moving slowly in the same direction, and she quickened her
pace, glad of this quasi-company. It soon forged ahead, but she had
passed the outskirts of the town then and was not afraid.
A little way up the ascent a cumbrous shadow startled her. She saw in a
moment that it was the automobile, halted at the side of the road. Her
footsteps made no sound and she was close upon it when she saw the three
men it had carried standing near-by. She made to pass them, and had
crossed half the intervening space, when some instinct sent her to the
shade of the trees. They had stopped opposite the hydraulic concession,
where a side path left the main road--it was the same path by which she
and Emmet Prendergast had taken their unconscious burden on a night long
ago--leading along the hillside, overlooking the snake-like flume, and
forming a steeper short-cut to the cabin above. They were conversing in
low tones, and as they talked they pointed, she thought toward it.
Jessica had never in her life been an eavesdropper, but her excited
senses made her anxious. Moreover, she was in a way committed, for she
could not now emerge without being seen. As she waited, a man came from
the path and joined the others. The sky had been overcast and gloomy,
but the moon drew out just then and she saw that the new-comer,
evidently a patrol, carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm. She also
saw that one of the first three was the automobile's owner.
For some minutes they conversed in undertones, whose very secrecy
inflamed her imagination. It seemed to her that they made some reference
to the flume. Had there been another robbery of the sluice-boxes, and
could they still suspect Hugh?
Dread and indignation made her bold. When they turned into the path she
followed, treading noiselessly, till she was close behind them. They
had stopped again, and were looking intently at a shadowy gray something
that moved in the bottom below.
She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh:
"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the
sluice-box. He often does that."
Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with
Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"--the rest was lost
in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first
speaker, sighted, and fired.
In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused
a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so
much as the sound that followed it--a cry that had nothing animal-like,
and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay
huddled by the sluice-box.
In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow.
She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's
skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again.
"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said
contemptuously.
The white face stared up at them, venomous and writhing, turning about
the circle as though searching for some one who was not there.
"How did--you guess?"
The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the
panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said.
A sinister look darted into the filming yellow eyes, and hatred and
certainty rekindled them. Prendergast struggled to a sitting posture,
then fell back, convulsed. "Hugh Stires! He was the only--one who
knew--how it was done. He's clever, but he can't get the best of
Prendergast!" A spasm distorted his features. "Wait--wait!"
He fumbled in his breast and his fingers brought forth a crumpled piece
of paper. He thrust it into the sheriff's hands.
"Look! Look!" he gasped. "The man they found murdered on the claim
there"--he pointed wildly up the hillside--"Doctor Moreau. I found
him--dying! Stires--"
Strength was fast failing him. He tried again to speak, but only
inarticulate sounds came from his throat.
A blind terror had clutched the heart of the girl leaning from the
shadow. "Doctor Moreau"--"murdered." Why, he had been one of Hugh's
friends! Why did this man couple Hugh's name with that worst of crimes?
What dreadful thing was he trying to tell? She hardly repressed a desire
to scream aloud.
"Be careful what you say, Prendergast," said the sheriff sternly.
The wretched man gathered force for a last effort. His voice came in a
croaking whisper:
"It was Stires killed him. Moreau wrote it down--and I--kept the paper.
Tell Hugh--we break--even!"
That was all. His head fell back with a shiver, and Emmet Prendergast
was gone on a longer journey than ever his revenge could warm him.