"What gets me," marvelled Torrance, "is why he bothered to shoot when he didn't want to hit. A regular splash of them, too. I might have fired back."
Conrad's eyes were twinkling. "So you might. What a blessing is self-control! I suppose he's killed so many in his day it's sort of lost its glamour. See the admiring public he left behind by only frightening you to death."
"But the woman in the case!"
"What woman?" The foreman looked from one to the other.
"You didn't see her?"
"I confess I haven't the eye for skirts you have, but—" He broke off suddenly and darted to the grade. "Here!" he snapped, peering into the dark woods beyond. "Come out of it."
Three men emerged somewhat shame-facedly from the gloom and followed him to the shack. One of them, evidently the leader, was talking volubly, but Conrad did not even appear to listen until they stood in the open before the door.
"Now, what were you doing there?"
"Lefty Werner and Heppel and me, we hear shots," explained a large, raw-boned foreigner with an ugly scar along the side of his jaw. "We come quick. Fear boss and young missus maybe need help."
Koppy, the Polish under foreman, sent his eyes darting from face to face. In his manner was a curious mingling of bravado and diffidence—a lumbering body, a shrinking way of holding himself, a stammering foreign accent and phrasing. But in spite of it there was ample ground for Torrance's persistent suspicions. Perhaps it was the darting, all-seeing eyes, perhaps the exaggeration of diffidence, but Koppy gave the impression of thinking more than he said.