With a few swift strokes, he completed and signed his report. His O.C. must be prepared for that murder report, whether Hardley finally acted on Brewster's advice or not.
Hurrying from the hotel into King Street, Seymour found the post office and mailed his letter. Then, although the hour was only seven, he advanced casually upon the Home Restaurant. He was eager to be on his way to the creeks before Hardley stumbled, as possibly he might, upon the fact that Seymour's rifle, stored with his outfit, was a 30-30 and that Kaw was "shod in front and plain behind."
CHAPTER XIX
INTO THE NIGHT
"You were saying, Mrs. Caswell——"
Seymour's wait at one of the Home's small tables had been long drawn. The slender widow was worked "ragged" to cook and serve the tide of customers that, by perverse chance, had set in particularly strong that evening.
Fortunately, all were strangers to the sergeant and he congratulated himself that he had attracted only passing notice as he sat seemingly absorbed in an old fiction magazine, with his coffee never quite finished before him. He had gained nothing by coming early, for it was nearly nine o'clock when at last they found themselves alone.
"Are you too tired to talk, Mrs. Caswell? You've had a hard day," the sergeant interrupted himself. The widow smiled wanly, a grateful light in her eyes, but replied that she would prefer to "have it over with."
"Let me see," she considered, for appearance's sake supporting her weary self by leaning over a stool, instead of sitting down at the table beside him. "Where was I this afternoon when that old pest broke in?"
"I trust you punctured Cato's hopes?" The sergeant could not resist the momentary digression.