She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh:
"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the sluice-box. He often does that."
Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"—the rest was lost in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first speaker, sighted, and fired.
In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so much as the sound that followed it—a cry that had nothing animal-like, and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay huddled by the sluice-box.
In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow. She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again.
"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said contemptuously.
The white face stared up at them, venomous and writhing, turning about the circle as though searching for some one who was not there.
"How did—you guess?"
The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said.
A sinister look darted into the filming yellow eyes, and hatred and certainty rekindled them. Prendergast struggled to a sitting posture, then fell back, convulsed. "Hugh Stires! He was the only—one who knew—how it was done. He's clever, but he can't get the best of Prendergast!" A spasm distorted his features. "Wait—wait!"