In another instant he was running townward at full speed, and I was flying at an equal pace through the dark and silent street toward Dr. Bethel's cottage.
CHAPTER XXIV.
JIM LONG SHOWS HIS HAND.
As I ran through the silent, dusky street, keeping to the road in preference to risking myself, at that pace, over some most uncertain "sidewalks," for pavements were unknown in Trafton, my thoughts were keeping pace with my heels.
First they dwelt upon the fact that Jim Long, in making his brief, hasty exhortation to me, had forgotten, or chosen to ignore, his nasal twang and rustic dialect, and that his earnestness and agitation had betrayed a more than ordinary interest in Carl Bethel, and a much more than ordinary dismay at the calamity which had befallen him.
Carl Bethel had been shot down at his own door!
How came it that Jim Long was near the scene and ready for the rescue, at eleven o'clock at night? Who had committed the deed? And why?
Some thoughts come to us like inspirations. Suddenly there flashed upon my mind a possible man and a probable motive.