The Law-Breakers

But Kate displayed no haste. Now that the wager was made she seemed less delighted. After a moment’s thought, however, she gave him the information he required.

“I’ve learned definitely that on Monday next, that’s nearly a week to-day, there’s a cargo coming in along the river trail, from the east. The gang will set out to meet it at midnight, and will bring it into the village about two o’clock in the morning. How, I can’t say.”

Fyles’s desperate eyes seemed literally to bore their way through her.

“That’s – the truth?”

“True as – death.”

CHAPTER XXIX
BILL’S FRESH BLUNDERING

The change in the man that rode away from Kate Seton’s home as compared with the man who had arrived there less than an hour earlier was so remarkable as to be almost absurd in a man of Stanley Fyles’s reputation for stern discipline and uncompromising methods. There was an almost boyish light of excited anticipation and hope in the usually cold eyes that looked out down the valley as he rode away. There was no doubt, no question. His look suggested the confidence of the victor. And so Charlie Bryant read it as he passed him on the trail.

Charlie was in a discontented mood. He had seen Fyles approach Kate’s home from his eyrie on the valley slope, and that hopeless impulse belonging to a weakly nature, that self-pitying desire to further lacerate his own feelings, had sent him seeking to intercept the man whom he felt in his inmost heart was his successful rival for all that which he most desired on earth.

So he walked past Fyles, who was on the back of his faithful Peter, and hungrily read the expression of his face, that he might further assure himself of the truth of his convictions.

The men passed each other without the exchange of a word. Fyles eyed the slight figure with contempt and dislike. Nor could he help such feelings for one whom he knew possessed so much of Kate’s warmest sympathy and liking. Besides, was he not a man whose doings placed him against the law, in the administration of which it was his duty to share?

Charlie’s eyes were full of an undisguised hatred. His interpretation of the officer’s expression left him no room for doubting. Delight, victory, were hall-marked all over it. And victory for Fyles could only mean defeat for him.

He passed on. His way took him along the main village trail, and, presently, he encountered two people whom he would willingly have avoided. Helen and his brother were returning toward the house across the river.

Helen’s quick eyes saw him at once, and she pointed him out to the big man at her side.

“It’s Charlie,” she cried, “let’s hurry, or he’ll give us the slip. I must tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

But Helen deigned no answer. She hurried on, and called to the dejected figure, which, to her imagination, seemed to shuffle rather than walk along the trail.

Charlie Bryant had no alternative. He came up. He felt a desperate desire to curse their evident happiness in each other’s society. Why should these two know nothing but the joys of life, while he – he was forbidden even a shadow of the happiness for which he yearned?

But Helen gave him little enough chance to further castigate himself with self-pity. She was full of her desire to impart her news, and her desire promptly set her tongue rattling out her story.

“Oh, Charlie,” she cried, “I’ve had such a shock. Say, did you ever have a cyclone strike you when – when there wasn’t a cyclone within a hundred miles of you?” Then she laughed. “That surely don’t sound right, does it? It’s – it’s kind of mixed metaphor. Anyway, you know what I mean. I had that to-day. Bill’s nearly killed one of our boys – Pete Clancy. Say, I once saw a dog fight. It was a terrier, and one of those heavy, slow British bulldogs. Well, I guess when he starts the bully is greased lightning. Bill’s that bully. That’s all. Pete tried to kiss me. He was drunk. They’re always drunk when they get gay like that. Bill guessed he wasn’t going to succeed, and now I sort of fancy he’s sitting back there by our barn trying to sort out his face. My, Bill nearly killed him!”

But the girl’s dancing-eyed enjoyment found no reflection in Bill’s brother. In a moment Charlie’s whole manner underwent a change, and his dark eyes stared incredulously up into Bill’s face, which, surely enough, still bore the marks of his encounter.

“You – thrashed Pete?” he inquired slowly, in the manner of a man painfully digesting unpleasant facts.

But Bill was in no mood to accept any sort of chiding on the point.

“I wish I’d – killed him,” he retorted fiercely.

Charlie’s eyes turned slowly from the contemplation of his brother’s war-scarred features.

“I guess he deserved it – all right,” he said thoughtfully.

Helen protested indignantly.

“Deserved it? My word, he deserved – anything,” she cried. Then her indignation merged again into her usual laughter. “Say,” she went on. “I – I don’t believe you’re a bit glad, a bit thankful to Bill. I – I don’t believe you mind that – that I was insulted. Oh, but if you’d only seen it you’d have been proud of Big Brother Bill. He – he was just greased lightning. I don’t think I’d be scared of anything with him around.”

But her praise was too much for the modest Bill. He flushed as he clumsily endeavored to change the subject.

“Where are you going, Charlie?” he inquired. “We’re going on over the river. Kate’s there. You coming?”

Just for a moment a look of hesitation crept into his brother’s eyes. He glanced across the river as though he were yearning to accept the invitation. But, a moment later, his eyes came back to his brother with a look of almost cold decision.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he said. Then he added, “I’ve got something to see to – in the village.”

Bill made no attempt to question him further, and Helen had no desire to. She felt that she had somehow blundered, and her busy mind was speculating as to how.

They parted. And as Charlie moved on he called back to Bill.

“I’ll be back soon. Will you be home?”

“I can be. In an hour?”

Charlie nodded and went on.

The moment they were out of earshot Helen turned to her lover.

“Say, Bill,” she exclaimed. “What have I done wrong?”

The laughter had gone out of her eyes and left them full of anxiety.

Bill shrugged gloomily.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s me – again.” Then he added, still more gloomily, “Pete’s one of the whisky gang, and – I’m Charlie’s brother. Say,” he finished up with a ponderous sigh. “I’ve mussed things – surely.”

“I’m sorry for that scrap, Bill.”

Charlie Bryant was leaning against a veranda post with his hands in his pockets, and his gaze, as usual, fixed on the far side of the valley. Bill completely filled a chair, where he basked in the evening sunlight.

“So am I – now, Charlie.”

The big man’s agreement brought the other’s eyes to his battered face.

“Why?” he demanded quickly.

Bill looked up into the dark eyes above him, and his own were full of concern.

“Why? Is there need to ask that?”

A shadowy smile spread slowly over the other’s face.

“No, I don’t guess you need to ask why.”

There was just the slightest emphasis on the pronoun.

“You’ve remembered he’s one of the gang – my gang. You sort of feel there’s danger ahead – in consequence. Yes, there is danger. That’s why I’m sorry. But – somehow I wouldn’t have had you act different – even though there’s danger. I’m glad it was you, and not me, though. You could hammer him with your two big fists. I couldn’t. I should have shot him – dead.”

Bill stared incredulously at the other’s boyish face. His brother’s tone had carried such cold conviction.

“Charlie,” he cried, “you get me beat every time. I wouldn’t have guessed you felt that way.”

The other smiled bitterly.

“No,” he said. Then he shifted his position. “I’m afraid there’s going to be trouble. I’ve thought a heap since Helen told me.”

“Trouble – through me?” said Bill, sharply. “Say, there’s been nothing but blundering through me ever since I came here. I’d best pull up stakes and get out. I’m too big and foolish. I’m the worst blundering idiot out. I wish I’d shot him up. But,” he added plaintively, “I hadn’t got a gun. Say, I’m too foolishly civilized for this country. I sure best get back to the parlors of the East where I came from.”

Charlie shook his head, and his smile was affectionate.

“Best stop around, Bill,” he said. “You haven’t blundered. You’ve acted as – honesty demanded. If there’s trouble comes through it, it’s no blame to you. There’s no blame to you anyway. You’re honest. Maybe I’ve cursed you some, but it’s me who’s wrong – always. Do you get me? It don’t make any difference to my real feelings. You just stop around all you need, and don’t you act different from what you are doing.”

Bill stirred his bulk uneasily.

“But this trouble? Say, Charlie, boy,” he cried, his big face flushing painfully, “it don’t matter to me a curse what you are. You’re my brother. See? I wouldn’t do you a hurt intentionally. I’d – I’d chop my own fool head off first. Can’t anything be done? Can’t I do anything to fix things right?”

The other had turned away. A grave anxiety was written all over his youthful face.

“Maybe,” he said.

“How? Just tell me right now,” cried Bill eagerly.

“Why – ” Charlie broke off. His pause was one of deep consideration.

“It don’t matter what it is, Charlie,” cried Bill, suddenly stirred to a big pitch of enthusiasm. “Just count me on your side, and – and if you need to have Fyles shot up, why – I’m your man.”

Charlie shook his head.

“Don’t worry that way,” he cried. “Just stop around. You needn’t ask a whole heap of questions. Just stop around, and maybe you can bear a hand – some day. I shan’t ask you to do any dirty work. But if there’s anything an honest man may do – why, I’ll ask you – sure.”

CHAPTER XXX
THE COMMITTEE DECIDE

The earlier days of summer were passing rapidly. And with their passage Kate Seton’s variations of mood became remarkable. There were times when her excited cheerfulness astounded her sister, and there were times when her depression caused her the greatest anxiety. Kate was displaying a variableness and uncertainty to which Helen was quite unaccustomed, and it left the girl laboring under a great strain of worry.

She strove very hard to, as she termed it, localize her sister’s changes of mood, and in this she was not without a measure of success. Whenever the doings of the church committee were discussed Kate’s mood dropped to zero, and sometimes below that point. It was obvious that the decision to demolish the old landmark in the service of the church was causing her an alarm and anxiety which would far better have fitted one of the old village wives, eaten up with superstition, than a woman of Kate’s high-spirited courage. Then, too, the work of her little farm seemed to worry her. Her attention to it in these days became almost feverish. Whereas, until recently, all her available time was given to church affairs, now these were almost entirely neglected in favor of the farm. Kate was almost always to be found in company of her two hired men, working with a zest that ill suited the methods of her male helpers.

On one occasion Helen ventured to remark upon it in her inconsequent fashion, a fashion often used to disguise her real feelings, her real interest.

Kate had just returned from a long morning out on the wheat land. She was weary, and dusty, and thirsty. And she had just thirstily drained a huge glass of barley water.

“For the Lord’s sake, Kate!” Helen cried in pretended dismay. “When I see you drink like that I kind of feel I’m growing fins all over me.”

Kate smiled, but without lightness.

“Get right out in this July sun and try to shame your hired men into doing a man’s work, and see how you feel then,” she retorted. “Fins? – why, you’d give right up walking, and grow a full-sized tail, and an uncomfortable crop of scales.”

Helen shook her head.

“I wouldn’t work that way. Say, you’re always chasing the boys up. Are they slacking worse than usual? Are they on the ‘buck’?”

Kate shot a swift glance into the gray eyes fixed on her so shrewdly.

“No,” she said quite soberly. “Only – only work’s good for folks, sometimes. The boys are all right. It just does me good to work. Besides, I like to know what Pete’s doing.”

“You mean – ?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter what I mean,” Kate retorted, with a sudden impatience. “Where’s dinner?”

This was something of her sister’s mood more or less all the time, and Helen found it very trying. But she made every allowance for it, also the more readily as she watched the affairs of the church, and understood how surely they were upsetting to her sister through her belief in the old Indian legend of the fateful pine.

But Kate’s occasional outbursts of delirious excitement were far more difficult of understanding. Helen read them in the only way she understood. Her observation warned her that they generally followed talk of the doings of Inspector Fyles, or a distant view of him.

As the days went by Kate seemed more and more wrapped up in the work of the police. Every little item of news of them she hungrily devoured. And frequently she went out on long solitary rides, which Helen concluded were for the purpose of interested observation of their doings.

But all this display of interest was somewhat nullified by another curious phase in her sister. It quickly became obvious that she was endeavoring by every artifice to avoid coming into actual contact with Stanley Fyles. Somehow this did not seem to fit in with Helen’s idea of love, and again she found herself at a loss.

Thus poor Helen found herself passing many troubled hours. Things seemed to be going peculiarly awry, and, for the life of her, she could not follow their trend with any certainty of whither it was leading. Even Bill was worse than of no assistance to her. Whenever she poured out her long list of anxieties to him, he assumed a perfectly absurd air of caution and denial that left her laboring under the belief that he really was “one big fool,” or else he knew something, and had the audacity to keep it from her. In Bill’s case, however, the truth was he felt he had blundered so much already in his brother’s interests that he was not prepared to take any more chances, even with Helen.

Then came one memorable and painful day for Helen. It was a Saturday morning. She had just returned from a church committee meeting. Kate had deliberately absented herself from her post as honorary secretary ever since the decision to fell the old pine had been arrived at. It was her method of protest against the outrage. But Mrs. John Day, quite undisturbed, had appointed a fresh secretary, and Kate’s defection had been allowed to pass as a matter of no great importance.

The noon meal was on the table when Helen came in. Kate was at her little bureau writing. The moment her sister entered the room she closed the desk and locked it. Helen saw the action and almost listlessly remarked upon it.

“It’s all right, Kate,” she said. “Bluebeard’s chamber doesn’t interest me – to-day.”

Kate started up at the other’s depressed tone. She looked sharply into the gray eyes, in which there was no longer any sign of their usual laughter.

“What’s the matter, dear?” she asked, with affectionate concern. “Mrs. John?”

Helen nodded. Then at once she shook her head.

“Yes – no. Oh, I don’t know. No, I don’t think it’s Mrs. John. It’s – it’s everybody.”

Kate had moved to the head of the table, and stood with her hands gripping the back of her chair.

“Everybody?” she said, with a quiet look of understanding in her big eyes. “You mean – the tree?”

Helen nodded. She was very near tears.

But Kate rose to the occasion. She knew. She pointed at Helen’s chair.

“Sit down, dear. We’ll have food,” she said, quietly. “I’m as hungry as any coyote.”

Helen obeyed. She was feeling so miserable for her sister, that she had lost all inclination to eat. But Kate seemed to have entirely risen above any of the feelings she had so lately displayed. She laughed, and, with gentle insistence, forced the other to eat her dinner. Strangely enough her manner had become that which Helen seemed to have lost sight of for so long. All her actions, all her words, were full of confident assurance, and quiet command.

Gradually, under this new influence, the anxiety began to die out of Helen’s eyes, and the watchful Kate beheld the change with satisfaction. Then, when the girl had done full justice to the simple meal, she pushed her own plate aside, planted her elbows upon the table, and sat with her strong brown hands clasped.

“Now tell me,” she commanded gently.

In a moment Helen’s anxiety returned, and her lips trembled. The next she was telling her story – in a confused sort of rush.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she cried. “It’s – it’s too bad. You see, Kate, I didn’t sort of think about it, or trouble anything, until you let me know how you felt over that – that old story. It didn’t seem to me that old tree mattered at all. It didn’t seem to me it could hurt cutting it down, any more than any other. And now – now it just seems as if – as if the world’ll come to an end when they cut it down. I believe I’m more frightened than you are.”

“Frightened?”

Kate smiled. But the smile scarcely disguised her true feelings.

“Yes, I’m scared – to death – now,” Helen went on, “because they’re going to cut it down. They’ve fixed the time and – day.”

“They’ve fixed the time – and day,” repeated Kate dully. “When?”

Her smile had completely gone now. Her dark eyes were fixed on her sister’s face with a curious straining.

“Tuesday morning at – daybreak.”

“Tuesday – daybreak? Go on. Tell me some more.”

“There’s no more to tell, only – only there’s to be a ceremony. The whole village is going to turn out and assist. Mrs. Day is going to make an ad-dress. She said if she’d known there was a legend and curse to that pine she’s have had it down at the start of building the church. She’d have had it down ‘in the name of religion, honesty and righteousness’ – those were her words – ‘as a fitting tribute at the laying of the foundations of the new church.’ Again, in her own words, she said, ‘It’s presence in the valley is a cloud obscuring the sun of our civilization, a stumbling block to the progress of righteousness.’ And – and they all agreed that she was right – all of them.”

Kate was no longer looking at her sister. She was gazing out straight ahead of her. It is doubtful even if she had listened to the pronouncements of Mrs. John Day, with her self-satisfied dictatorship of the village social and religious affairs. She was thinking – thinking. And something almost like panic seemed suddenly to have taken hold of her.

“Tuesday – at daybreak,” she muttered. Then, in a moment, her eyes flashed, and she sprang from her chair. “Daybreak? Why, that – that’s practically Monday night! Do you hear? Monday night!”

Helen was on her feet in a moment.

“I – I don’t understand,” she stammered.

“Understand? No, of course you don’t. Nobody understands but me,” Kate cried fiercely. “I understand, and I tell you they’re all mad. Hopelessly mad.” She laughed wildly. “Disaster? Oh, blind, blind, fools. There’ll be disaster, sure enough. The old Indian curse will be fulfilled. Oh, Helen, I could weep for the purblind skepticism of this wretched people, this consequential old fool, Mrs. Day. And I – I am the idiot who has brought it all about.”

CHAPTER XXXI
ANTAGONISTS

Fyles endured perhaps the most anxious time that had ever fallen to his lot, during the few days following his momentous interview with Kate. An infinitesimal beam of daylight had lit up the black horizon of his threatened future. It was a question, a painfully doubtful question, as to whether it would mature and develop into a glorious sunlight, or whether the threatening clouds would overwhelm it, and thrust it back into the obscurity whence it had sprung.

He dared not attempt to answer the question himself. Everything hung upon that insecure thread of official amenability. Such was his own experience that he was beset by the gravest doubts. His only hope lay in the long record of exceptional work he possessed to his credit in the books of the police. This, and the story he had to tell them of future possibilities in the valley of Leaping Creek.

Would Jason listen? Would he turn up the records, and count the excellence of Inspector Fyles’s past work? Or would he, with that callous severity of police regulations, only regard the failures, and turn a deaf official ear to the promise of the future? Supersession was so simple in the force, it was the usual routine. Would the superintendent in charge interest himself sufficiently to get away from it?

These were some of the doubts with which the police officer was assailed. These were some of the endless pros and cons he debated with his lieutenant, Sergeant McBain, when they sat together planning their next campaign, while awaiting Amberley’s reply to both the report of failure, and plea for the future.

But Fyles’s anxieties were far deeper than McBain’s, who was equally involved in the failure. He had far more at stake. For one thing he belonged to the commissioned ranks, and his fall, in conjunction with his greater and wider reputation, would be far more disastrous. For McBain, reduction in rank was of lesser magnitude. His rank could be regained. For Fyles there was no such redemption. Resignation from the force was his alternative to being dismissed, and from resignation there was no recovery of rank.

At one time this would have been his paramount, almost sole anxiety. It would have meant the loss of all he had achieved in the past. Now, curiously enough, it took a second place in his thoughts. A greater factor than ambition had entered into his life, a factor to which he had promptly become enslaved. Far above all thoughts of ambition, of place, of power, of all sense of duty, the figure of a handsome dark-eyed woman rose before his mind’s eye. Kate Seton had become his whole world, the idol of all his thoughts and ambitions, and longings, which left every other consideration lost in the remotest shadows far below.

His earlier love for her had suddenly burst into a passionate flame that seemed to be devouring his very soul. And he had a chance of winning her. A chance. It seemed absurd – a mere chance. It was not his way in life to wait for chances. It was for him to set out on a purpose, and achieve or fail. Here – here, where his love was concerned, he was committing himself to accepting chances, the slightest chances, when the winning of Kate for his wife had become the essence of all his hopes and ambitions.

Chance? Yes, it was all chance. The decision of Superintendent Jason. The leadership of this gang. His success in capturing the man, when the time came. In a moment his whole life seemed to have become a plaything to be tossed about at the whim of chance.

So the days passed, swallowed up by feverish work and preparation. It was work that might well be all thrown away should his recall be insisted upon at Amberley, or, at best, might only pave the way to his successor’s more fortunate endeavors. It was all very trying, very unsatisfactory, yet he dared not relax his efforts, with the knowledge which he now possessed, and the thought of Kate always before him.

Several times, during those anxious days, he sought to salve his troubled feelings by stealing precious moments of delight in the presence of this woman he loved. But somehow Fate seemed to have assumed a further perverseness, and appeared bent on robbing him of even this slight satisfaction.

At such times Kate was never to be found. Small as was that little world in the valley, it seemed to Fyles that she had a knack of vanishing from his sight as though she had been literally spirited away. Nor for some time could he bring himself to realize that she was deliberately avoiding him.

She was never at home when he rode up to the house on the back of his faithful Peter. And, furthermore, at such times as he found Helen there, she never by any chance knew where her sister was. Even when he chanced to discover Kate in the distance, on his rare visits to the village, she was never to be found by the time he reached the spot at which he had seen her. She was as elusive as a will-o’-th’-wisp.

But this could not go on forever, and, after one memorable visit to the postoffice, where he found a letter awaiting him from headquarters, Fyles determined to be denied no longer.

His task was less easy than he supposed, and it was not until evening that he finally achieved his purpose.

It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening. Up to that time his search had been utterly unavailing, and he found himself riding down the village trail at a loss, and in a fiercely impatient mood.

He had just reached the point where the trail split in two. The one way traveling due west, and the other up to the new church, and on, beyond, to the Meeting House.

The inspiration came to him as Peter, of his own accord, turned off up the hill in the direction of the church. Then he remembered that the day was Saturday, and on Saturday evening it was Kate’s custom to put the Meeting House in order for the next day’s service.

In a moment he bustled his faithful horse, and, taking the grassy side of the trail for it, to muffle his approach, hurried on toward the quaint old building.

To his utmost delight he realized that, for once, Fate had decided to be kind to him. There was a light in one of the windows, and he knew that nobody but Kate had access to the place at times other than the hours of service.

In that moment of pleasant anticipation he was suddenly seized by an almost childish desire to take her unawares. The thought appealed to him strongly after his long and futile search, and, with this object, he steadied his horse’s gait lest the sound of its plodding hoofs should betray his approach. Twenty yards from the building he drew up and dismounted.

Once on foot he made his way across the intervening space and reached the window. A thin curtain, however, was drawn across it, and, though the light shone through, the interior remained hidden. So he pressed on toward the door.

Here he paused. And as he did so the sound of something heavy falling reached him from within. Kate was evidently moving the heavy benches. He hesitated only for an instant, then he placed his hand cautiously on the latch and raised it. In spite of his precautions the heavy old iron rattled noisily, and again he hesitated. Then, with a thrust, he pushed the aged door open and passed within.

He stood still, his eyes smiling. Kate was at the far end of the room on her knees. She was looking round at him with a curious, startled look in her eyes, which had somehow caught the reflection of the light from the oil bracket lamp on the floor beside her, and set them glowing a dull, golden copper. The long strip of coco-matting was rolled back from the floor, and she seemed to be in the act of resetting it in its place.

Just for a moment they remained staring at each other. Then Kate turned back to her work, and finished rolling out the matting.

“I’ll be glad, mighty glad, when – when we discontinue service in this place,” she said. “The dirt’s just – fierce.”

Fyles moved up toward her. The matting was in its place.

“Is it?” he said. Then, as he came to a halt, “Say, I’ve been chasing the village through half the day to find you, Kate. Then Peter led me here, and I remembered it was Saturday. I guessed I’d have a surprise on you, and I thought I’d succeeded. But you don’t ‘surprise’ worth a cent. Say, I’m to remain here till – after Monday.”

Kate slowly rose to her feet. She was clad in a white shirtwaist and old tailored skirt. She made a perfect figure of robust health and vigorous purpose. Her eyes, too, were shining, and full of those subtle depths of fire which held the man enthralled.

“Monday?” she said. Then in a curiously reflective way she repeated the word, “Monday.”

Fyles waited, and, in a moment, Kate’s thought seemed to pass. She looked fearlessly up into the man’s eyes, but there was no smile in response to his.

“I’m – going away until after – Monday,” she said.

“Going away?”

The man’s disappointment was too evident to be mistaken. “Why?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.

Quite suddenly the woman flung her arms out in a gesture of helplessness, which somehow did not seem to fit her.

“I can’t – bear the strain of waiting here,” she said, with an impatient shrug. “It’s – it’s on my nerves.”

The man began to smile again. “A wager like ours takes nerve to make, but a bigger nerve to carry through. Still, say, I can’t see how running from it’s going to help any. You’ll still be thinking. Thoughts take a heap of getting clear of. Best stop around. It’ll be exciting – some. I’m going to win out,” he went on, with confidence, “and I guess it’ll be a game worth watching, even if you – lose.”

Kate stooped and picked up the lamp. As she straightened up she sighed and shook her head. It seemed to the man that a grave trouble was in her handsome eyes.

“It’s not that,” she cried, suddenly. “Lose my wager? I’m not going to lose, but even if I were – I would pay up like a sportsman. No, it’s not that. It’s these foolish folk here. It’s these stupid creatures who’re just ready to fly at the throat of Providence and defy all – all superstition. Oh, yes, I know,” she hurried on, as the man raised his strongly marked brows in astonishment. “You’ll maybe think me a fool, a silly, credulous fool. But I know – I feel it here.” She placed her hands upon her bosom with a world of dramatic sincerity.

“What – what’s troubling you, Kate? I don’t seem to get your meaning.”

It was the woman’s turn to express surprise.

“Why, you know what they’re going to do here, practically on Monday night. You’ve heard? Why, the whole village is talking of it. It’s the tree. The old pine. They’re going to cut it down.” Then she laughed mirthlessly. “They’ll use it as a ridge pole for the new church. That wicked old, cursed pine.”