In a sober, set-faced way, I was amused by the dominie's extravagance. And yet I felt a call to be on my guard with him. Suppose he were to dislodge a stone which in its rolling should crash into and crush the plans of the machine! The town had been lost before, and oftener than once, as the result of beginnings no more grave. Aside from my liking for the good man, I was warned by the perils of my place to speak him softly.
“Well,” said I, trying for a humorous complexion, “if you are bound for a wrestle with those blacklegs, I will see that you have fair play.”
“If that be true,” returned the Reverend Bronson, promptly, “give me Inspector McCue.”
“And why Inspector McCue?” I asked. The suggestion had its baffling side. Inspector McCue was that honest one urged long ago upon Big Kennedy by Father Considine. I did not know Inspector McCue; there might lurk danger in the man. “Why McCue?” I repeated. “The business of arresting gamblers belongs more with the uniformed police. Gothecore is your proper officer.”
“Gothecore is not an honest man,” said the Reverend Bronson, with sententious frankness. “McCue, on the other hand, is an oasis in the Sahara of the police. He can be trusted. If you support him he will collect the facts and enforce the law.”
“Very well,” said I, “you shall take McCue. I have no official control in the matter, being but a private man like yourself. But I will speak to the Chief of Police, and doubtless he will grant my request.”
“There is, at least, reason to think so,” retorted the Reverend Bronson in a dry tone.
Before I went about an order to send Inspector McCue to the Reverend Bronson, I resolved to ask a question concerning him. Gothecore should be a well-head of information on that point; I would send for Gothecore. Also it might be wise to let him hear what was afoot for his precinct. He would need to be upon his defense, and to put others interested upon theirs.
Melting Moses, who still stood warder at my portals, I dispatched upon some errand. The sight of Gothecore would set him mad. I felt sorrow rather than affection for Melting Moses. There was something unsettled and mentally askew with the boy. He was queer of feature, with the twisted fantastic face one sees carved on the far end of a fiddle. Commonly, he was light of heart, and his laugh would have been comic had it not been for a note of the weird which rang in it. I had not asked him, on the day when he went backing for a spring at the throat of Gothecore, the reason of his hate. His exclamation, “He killed me mudder!” told the story. Besides, I could have done no good. Melting Moses would have given me no reply. The boy, true to his faith of Cherry Hill, would fight out his feuds for himself; he would accept no one's help, and regarded the term “squealer” as an epithet of measureless disgrace.
When Gothecore came in, I caught him at the first of it glowering furtively about, as though seeking someone.