Then, instantly, Carmel Lee knew what had become of Sheriff Churchill....
It was enough; she was required to look no more.... The spot was accursed, unendurable, and she fled from it; fled toward the lights of the Lakeside Hotel.... That they were lights of which she could not beg shelter she did not think; that she was safer with the thing which the lake had given up she did not consider. That the living to whom she fled were more frightful than the dead whom she deserted was not for her to believe in that moment. She must have light; she must feel the presence of human beings, hear human voices—it mattered not whose they were.
Presently, forcing her way through a last obstruction of baby spruces, she reached the thoroughfare, and there, hidden by the undergrowth, she stood, looking for the first time upon this group of buildings so notorious in the county, so important in her own affairs. The hotel itself, a structure of frame and shingles, stretched along the lake—a long, low, squatting, sinister building. A broad piazza stretched from end to end, and from its steps a walk led down to a wharf jutting into the water. To the rear were barns and sheds and an inclosure hidden from the eye by a high lattice—a typical roadhouse of the least desirable class.... She searched such of its windows as were lighted. Human figures moved to and fro in the room which must have been the dining room. An orchestra played....
She had been on the spot but a moment when she heard the approaching engine of some motor vehicle. She waited. A huge truck, loaded high and covered with a tarpaulin, drew up to the gate at the rear of the hotel. Its horn demanded admittance, the gate opened and it rolled in.... She waited, uncertain. Another truck appeared—high loaded as the first—and was admitted.... Then, in quick succession, three others.... Five trucks loaded to capacity—and Carmel knew well what was their load!... Contraband!... Its value to be counted not by thousands of dollars, but by tens of thousands!
The facts were hers now, but what was she to do with them? To whom report them?... And there was Evan. What mattered contraband whisky when his fate was in doubt? Evan Pell came first—she realized now that he came first, before everything, before herself!... She asked no questions, but accepted the fact.
Keeping to the roadside in the shadows, she picked her way along for a couple of hundred feet, meaning to cross the road and to make her way to the rear of the hotel’s inclosure. There must be some opening through which she might observe what passed and so make some discovery which might be of use to her in her need.... She paused, undecided, determined a sudden, quick crossing would be safest, and, lifting her skirts, ran out upon the roadway....
There was a shout, a rush of feet. She felt ungentle hands, and, dropping such inhibitions as generations of civilization had imposed upon her, Carmel fought like a wildcat, twisting, scratching, tearing.... She was crushed, smothered. Her arms were twisted behind her, a cloth jerked roughly over her face, and she felt herself lifted in powerful arms.... They carried her to some door, for she heard them rap for admission.
“Who’s there?” said a voice.
“Fetch Peewee,” said one of her captors. “Quick.” Then came a short wait, and she heard Peewee Bangs’s nasal voice. “What’s up?” he demanded.
“We got her. What’ll we do with her?”