"Is that Sergeant Leonard?" asked M'Cabe, who knew every policeman in the country. "Well, Sergeant, you've a knack of being on the spot when you're wanted!"
"And sometimes when he's not!" said I.
There was a third and unhelmeted presence on the car, and something of stillness and aloofness in it had led me to diagnose a prisoner.
The suggested dispositions were accomplished. The two policemen and the prisoner wedged themselves on one side of the car, M'Cabe and I mounted the other, and put the dog on the cushion of the well behind us (his late quarters in the dog-box being occupied by half a mountain sheep, destined for the hotel larder). The yellow mare went gallantly up to her collar, regardless of her augmented load; M'Cabe and the Sergeant leaned to each other across the back of the car, and fell into profound and low-toned converse; I smoked, and the dog, propping his wet back against mine, made friends with the prisoner. It may be the Irish blood in me that is responsible for the illicit sympathy with a prisoner that sometimes incommodes me; I certainly bestowed some of it upon the captive, sandwiched between two stalwarts of the R.I.C., and learning that the strong arm of the Law was a trifle compared with the rest of its person.
"What sport had you, Major?" enquired Jerry, as we slackened speed at a hill.
I was sitting at the top of the car, under his elbow, and he probably thought that I was feeling neglected during the heart-to-heart confidences of M'Cabe and the Sergeant.
"Not a feather," I replied.
"Sure the birds couldn't be in it this weather," said Jerry considerately; he had in his time condoled with many sportsmen. "I'm after talking to a man in Coppeen Road station, that was carrying the game bag for them gentlemen that has Mr. Purcell's shooting on Shinroe Mountain, and what had the four o' them after the day—only one jack-snipe!"
"They went one better than we did," I said, but, as was intended, I felt cheered—"what day were they there?"
"To-day, sure!" answered Jerry, with faint surprise, "and they hadn't their luncheon hardly ate when they met one on the mountain that told them he seen two fellas walking it, with guns and a dog, no more than an hour before them. 'That'll do!' says they, and they turned about and back with them to Coppeen Road to tell the police."