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Page 30
"Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should
be here soon, now. Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side
of Cow Run. They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to
come on here right away." He seated himself alongside the other.
Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation
anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the
poor broken body. Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly.
"Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the
rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming. I'm getting cold sitting here."
Redmond, nothing loath, complied. Mounting, they turned back to the
summit of the ridge. Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears,
and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace.
"Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing
old T and B up the grade."
Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted
subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"
Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his
narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?"
And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."
The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to
be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an
exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward
mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.
"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he
remarked casually.
Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and
swallowed the home-thrust in silence.
Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.
Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter
following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them
to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering
unholy delight.
Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"
"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . .
_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"
"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over
again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now!
Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av
thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have
given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.
They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the
cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the
gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.
"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the
frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut
happened?"
Redmond made affirmative response.
"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.
"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"
He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of
leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular
patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick,
seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment
came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.
"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's
'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My God!"
"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man?
One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the
clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a
glass wid him often enough."
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