“If I were to follow my own judgment I'd not send one man, but two,” he went on. “I don't mean to underestimate the value of my men when I say that our friend DeBar, who has evaded us for years, is equal to any two men I've got. I wouldn't care to go after him myself—alone. I'd want another hand with me, and a mighty good one—a man who was cool, cautious, and who knew all of the ins and outs of the game as well as myself. And here—” He interrupted himself, and chuckled audibly, “here you are asking permission to go after him alone! Why, man, it's the very next thing to inviting yourself to commit suicide! Now, if I were to send you, and along with you a good, level-headed man like Moody—”
“I have had enough of double-harness work, unless I am commanded to go, Mr. MacGregor,” interrupted Philip. “I realize that DeBar is a dangerous man, but I believe that I can bring him down. Will you give me the opportunity?”
MacGregor laid his cigar on the edge of the desk and leaned across toward his companion, the long white fingers of his big hands clasped in front of him. He always took this position, with a cigar smoldering beside him, when about to say those things which he wished to be indelibly impressed on the memory of his listener.
“Yes, I'm going to give you the opportunity,” he said slowly, “and I am also going to give you permission to change your mind after I have told you something about DeBar, whom we know as the Seventh Brother. I repeat that, if you go alone, it's just ten to one that you don't get him. Since '99 four men have gone out after him, and none has come back. There was Forbes, who went in that year; Bannock, who took up the trial in 1902; Fleisham in 1904, and Gresham in 1907. Since the time of Gresham's disappearance we have lost sight of DeBar, and only recently, as you know, have we got trace of him again. He is somewhere up on the edge of the Barren Lands. I have private information which leads me to believe that the factor at Fond du Lac can take you directly to him.”
MacGregor unclasped his hands to pick up a worn paper from a small pile on the desk.
“He is the last of seven brothers,” he added. “His father was hanged.”
“A good beginning,” interjected Philip.
“There's just the trouble,” said the inspector quickly. “It wasn't a good beginning. This is one of those peculiar cases of outlawry for which the law itself is largely responsible, and I don't know of any one I would say this to but you. The father was hanged, as I have said. Six months later it was discovered, beyond a doubt, that the law had taken the life of an innocent man, and that DeBar had been sent to the gallows by a combination of evidence fabricated entirely by the perjury of enemies. The law should have vindicated itself. But it didn't. Two of those who had plotted against DeBar were arrested, tried—and acquitted, a fact which goes to prove the statement of a certain great man that half of the time law is not justice. There is no need of going into greater detail about the trials of the three men chiefly instrumental in sending their father to his death, and who fled into the North.”
“Good!” exclaimed Philip.
The word shot from him before he had thought. At first he flushed, then sat bolt upright and smiled frankly into the inspector's face as he watched the effect of his indiscretion.