"And you wrote me that letter of warning?"
"Precisely."
"And undoubtedly you are the fellow who shot at me?"
"I am happy to say that I am."
"And I am happy to know that I have deprived you of the pleasure of handling firearms again for some time to come. Good morning, Mr. Brookhouse."
That was my final interview with Arch Brookhouse, but I saw him once more, for the last time, when I gave my testimony against him at the famous trial of the Trafton horse-thieves.
When the whole truth concerning the modus operandi of the horse-thieves was made public at the trial, when the Traftonites learned that for five years they had harbored stolen horses under the very steeples of the town, and that those horses, when the heat of the chase was over, were boldly driven away across the country and toward the river before a lumbering coal cart, they were astounded at the boldness of the scheme, and the hardihood of the men who had planned it.
But they no longer marveled at their own inability to fathom so cunning a plot.