Thus she was cut off from the supplies she had hoped to secure, and starvation would soon be staring her in the face if she remained in hiding, while to leave her retreat seemed too perilous a move to be contemplated for a moment. Yet loathing and dreading its darkness and closeness, she lingered where she was till the sun grew hot and she thought she descried in the distance a man approaching from the direction of the town. That sight sent her hurrying back to her poor refuge in a panic of fear.
CHAPTER XV.
The news of the arrest of O’Rourke, following upon his robbery of Himes, more especially because one of the notes stolen from Lakeside was found upon his person, was highly exasperating to Colonel Bangs. He visited the jail that same evening, and held a rather stormy interview with the prisoner, reminding him of his warning that it was a dangerous thing to carry that note about with him, and telling him passionately that he should have kept it carefully hidden in some safe place.
“You’ve been a precious fool!” he concluded, “for who now will put any faith in the alibi I swore to in your favor?”
“If ye’re the smart lawyer I take ye fer, ye kin git me out o’ this throuble in spite o’ that,” returned Phelim, coolly; “an’ ye’d betther be afther thryin’ yer purtiest, or mabbe I moight be indooced to turn State’s ividence agin ye in that matther o’ the Lakeside burglary, to say nothin’ o’ wan or two ither jobs o’ the same sort.”
Bangs’s face flushed hotly; he was furious at the implied threat, but felt it his wisest course to conceal his anger and adopt a milder and more conciliatory tone.
“That would be very foolish, Phelim,” he said, with a forced laugh; “for if you got me sent to prison, who would defend you in future scrapes? I’ll undertake your defence this time, as a matter of course, and never fear that I’ll fail to clear you. I’d be willing to wager my head that we’ll come off with flying colors.”
“But I’ll have to clear out o’ this part o’ the counthry; ’twouldn’t niver do to attimpt to ply me thrade round here no more.”
“It would be a great risk, certainly,” returned Bangs. “But tell me, is there any truth in Himes’s story that his wife aided and abetted you?”