"Try not,—for my own sake,—but I'm not infallible," said Lloyd. His interest in Haxon's impressions had evaporated. Since Haxon had neither adequate aid nor well-considered advice to offer, and no fund of courage to recruit and reanimate the flagging energies of his partner, it did not matter how his vague conjecture skirmished about the point of attack and plan of action.
"You be sure you don't get into a hole——" Haxon paused. "You ain't thinking about giving the information to the authorities?" his small keen eyes kindled with the contemplation of this course.
"Certainly not," said Lloyd listlessly. He had drawn off his cuffs that had begun to wilt at the edges and was slipping the sleeve-links of oxydised silver into a fresh pair that, leaning back in his chair, he had reached from the tray of an open trunk.
"But you know the informer gets good pay. The government always pays like smoke." Haxon, now that his speculations, his proffers of plans, his advice were not solicited seemed bent on evolving and laying them before his companion. "We might get enough that way to defray the cost of the company's transportation to New York."
"We'd be much likelier to be laid by the heels for false arrest, for we couldn't prove any illicit distilling or sale, either. Besides, we'd get our heads shot off for playing the spy and informer; that's etiquette in this region."
"You'd better think about that reward, now Hil'ry," the acrobat eagerly urged. "You ain't afraid of getting shot, nor nothing else. You're holding back for another reason. There's a woman in the case!"
Lloyd looked up with a certain expectation and a deepening of the roseate flush on his fair, girlish cheek.
"You don't want to inform on them folks on account of that gal. You've gone and got mashed on a mountain singing-gal—the pals all say the public don't fall to her racket not the least little bit."
"Oh," said Lloyd, as if with sudden comprehension—had he thought Haxon was alluding to another woman here? He came visibly back, as from some far digression of thought.
"There's no use talking about that, Hax. I've been all along there—in fact, there ain't a by-path through this tangled torment that my mind ain't travelled since the show opened up. The reward would be paid for conviction, not for suspicion. No man gets paid for suspecting. We couldn't wait till the moonshiners were arrested and convicted in court—eat our heads off in that time, if anybody would credit us for the grub-stakes."