“I am not horrified,” he said. “It is—the wonder of it.”
“The wonder? It isn’t wonderful. It was so simple. A little ingenuity, a little nerve and recklessness. The law itself makes it easy. You cannot arrest on suspicion.” Kate sighed, and her eyes had become reflective, so that their calmness satisfied the waiting man. “I must tell you this,” she went on quickly. “My reasons were twofold. Helen and I came here to farm. We came here because I was crazy for adventure. We had money, but I soon found that we, two women, could never make our farm pay. We were here surrounded by outlaws, who were already smuggling liquor, and their trade appealed to me. I was just crazy to take a hand in it for the excitement of it, and—to replenish our diminishing capital.”
“Helen knows nothing about it,” she went on, her voice hardening as though the shameful story she was about to tell were forcing the iron deeper and deeper into her soul. “She has never guessed, or suspected, and I could almost hope she never will. It didn’t take me long to make up my mind. This was about the time Charlie came to the valley,” she sighed. “Well, I quickly contrived to get at the men I wanted. I talked to them carefully, and finally unfolded to them a plan I had worked out to smuggle whisky on a large and profitable scale. It doesn’t matter about the details. They all came in at once. It pleased their sense of humor to be run by a woman. I was to disguise myself as a man, which nature made easy for me, and my real personality was to be our chief safeguard. No one would suspect unless we were caught red-handed. And that—well, that was not a great chance, anyway, in those days. I was responsible. I was to purchase cargoes across the border. The others were only my helpers, under my absolute orders. And I ruled them sharply.”
The man nodded without other comment.
“But Charlie had arrived, and very soon his coming began to complicate matters,” Kate went on, after the briefest of pauses. “He came out here to ranch. He was turned out of his home. And I—I just pitied him, and strove to turn him from his drunken habits. This is where the mischief was done. I liked him. I sort of felt like a mother to him. He was so gentle and kind-hearted. He was clever, too—very clever. Yes, I looked upon him as a son, or brother—but he didn’t look on me in the same way. I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think. I was foolish. Anyway, Charlie asked me to marry him. I refused him, and he drank himself into delirium tremens.”
Again came a long-drawn sigh at the memory of that poor, wasted life.
“Well, I nursed him, and finally he got better, and again I went on with my work. Then, one day, I received a shock. Charlie came to me and told me he’d found a mysterious old corral, away up, hidden in the higher reaches of the valley. He begged me to let him show it me. Feeling that I owed him something, I consented to go with him. So we rode out. You know the place. But maybe you don’t know its secret.”
Fyles nodded.
“Yes—you mean the—cupboard in the lining of the wall.”
“You know it?” Kate’s surprise was marked. However, she went on rapidly. “Well, while we were there he showed it to me, and then, looking me straight in the eyes, he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be a dandy hiding place for things? Suppose I was a big whisky smuggler. Suppose I wanted to disguise myself. I could keep my disguise here. No chance of its being found by police or any one. It would be a great place.’ Then he went on, enlarging enthusiastically upon his idea. He said, ‘A feller wants to do things right if he’s going to beat the law. If I were running liquor I’d take no chances. I’d run it on a big scale, and I’d cache my stuff in the cellars under the Meeting House. No one knows of ’em. I only lit on ’em by chance.