We followed them for something over a mile, when—heaven and hell! The trail opened abruptly on the clearing where lay my recently acquired cordwood with my five barrels of whiskey concealed in its midst.
The girl strode forward, and with the strength of a man, pitched down a dozen sticks with lightning speed.
"There!" she cried, turning to Tom. "There you find him—you find him whiskey. You say you spill. No more my father he's drunk all day, he beat my mother."
I stepped out.
"So, Tom Barrett," I said, "you've played the d——d sneak and hunted it out!"
He fairly jumped at the sound of my voice; then he got white as paper, and then—something came into his face that I never saw before. It was a look like his father's, the old missionary.
"Yes, McLeod," he answered. "And I've hunted you out. It's cost me the loss of a whole term at college and a considerable amount of self-respect, but I've got my finger on you now!"
The whole infernal trick burst right in on my intelligence. If I had had a revolver, he would have been a dead man; but border traders nowadays are not desperadoes with bowie knives and hip pockets—
"You surely don't mean to split on me?" I asked.
"I surely don't mean to do anything else," he cheeked back.