"I guess that can wait till another day," said she, with a smile that he did not quite understand. "It would be rather stupid of me, don't you think, to have him arrested?"
"You said he was not the kind of a man to be taken alive," he remarked, knitting his brows.
"I think I said something of the kind. The name of Simon Braley is known from one end of this State to the other. It is a name to conjure fear with. Every Indian uprising in the past ten years has had Braley's name connected with it. It was he who led the band of Chippewas twelve years ago when they massacred some fifteen or eighteen women and children in a settlement on White River while their men were off in the fields at work. Isn't it rather significant that the renegade Simon Braley should turn up in these parts at a time when Black Hawk is—But that is neither here nor there. My warrant calls for the arrest of Martin Hawk. For more than two years Hawk has been suspected of stealing livestock down on the Wea, but no one has ever been willing to make a specific charge against him. He is very cunning and he has always covered his tracks."
"Do you think he will resist the sheriff? I mean, is there likely to be fighting?"
"It all depends on whether Martin is caught napping," she replied in a most casual manner. "By the way, has Isaac Stain told you much about himself?"
Kenneth could not repress a smile. "He has mentioned one or two affairs of the heart."
"His sister was one of the women massacred by the Chippewas down on White River that time. She was the young wife of a settler. Isaac will be overjoyed when he finds out that Jasper Suggs and Simon Braley are one and the same person."
He was speechless for a moment, comprehension coming slowly to him. "By all that's holy!" he exclaimed, something like awe in his voice. "I am beginning to understand. Stain will be one of the sheriff's party?"
"We will stop at his cabin on the way to Hawk's," she replied. "If he chooses to join us after I have told him who I think this man Suggs really is, no one will object."
"You say 'we.' Do you mean to tell me that you are going along with the posse? Good God, woman, there will be shooting! You must not think of—"