"I wonder if they will fight?"
"Very likely; although I don't really think there is much fight in Mustushimi at any time. He is a coward."
"But the others? The remaining nine?"
"They may put up a fight. It is very likely that they will do so. They will know that they are on Virginia ground and out of the jurisdiction of Washington. They have probably counted on that very thing in selecting that place for their rendezvous. There are notorious delays of the laws in some parts of Virginia- they know that, too, probably."
"Maybe they will have skipped, all of them, before we get there."
"That is the only thing I fear now; but they cannot suspect they will be overtaken quite so soon. My principal hope lies in the idea that they will not have taken their departure as yet, although they will be getting ready to do so."
"You cannot arrest men for being mere spies, can you?"
"As a matter of fact, I have no right to arrest any of them, within the State of Virginia, to-night. But I'm going to take the right, if I find them there."
"It will be a grand haul if you get all of them, Carter. You will have captured every one of the band, without one escaping, and have done it all within a few hours."
"That is what I hope to do, senator. That is the sort of thing that will frighten this sort of business out of the United States. We don't want any spy systems here. There is no room for such things. We have no intrigues in our country, but if once you permitted a spy system to creep in, and flourish, it wouldn't be long before we would have as many intrigues in Washington as they have at foreign courts. And they are deadly things for any country."