Her tongue could not remain silent for long, however. Something of her doubt had to find an outlet.
“I knew it would come sooner or later,” she declared hopelessly.
She glanced quickly at Charlie, across her sister, beside whom he was walking. The man was staring out down at the village with gloomy eyes. She read into his expression a great dread of this officer’s coming to Rocky Springs. She knew she was witnessing the outward signs of a guilty conscience. Suddenly she made up her mind.
“What—ever is to be done?” she cried, half eagerly, half fearfully. “Say, I just can’t bear to think of it. All these men, men we’ve known, men we’ve got accustomed to, even—men we like, to be herded to the penitentiary. It’s awful. There’s some I shouldn’t be sorry to see put away. They’re scallywags, anyway. They aren’t clean, and they chew tobacco, and—and curse like railroaders. But they aren’t all like—that—are they, Kate?” She paused. Then, in a desperate appeal, “Kate, I’d fire your two boys, Nick and Pete. They’re mixed up in whisky-running, I know. When Stanley Fyles gets around they’ll be corralled, sure, and I’d hate him to think we employed such men. Don’t you think that, Charlie?” she demanded, turning sharply and looking into the man’s serious face.
Then, quite suddenly, she changed her tone and relapsed into her less responsible manner, and laughed as though something humorous had presented itself to her cheerful fancy.
“Guess I’d have to laugh seeing those two boys doing the chores around a penitentiary for—five years. They’d be cleaner then. Guess they get bathed once a week. Then the funny striped clothes they wear. Can’t you see Nick, with his long black hair all cut short, and his vulture neck sticking out of the top end of his clothes, like—like a thread of sewing cotton in a darning needle? Wouldn’t he look queer? And the work, too! Say, it would just break his heart. My, but they get most killed by the warders. And then for drink. Five years without tasting a drop of liquor. No—they’d go mad. Anybody would. And all for the sake of making a few odd dollars against the law. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it, not if I’d got to starve—else.”
The man made no answer. His eyes remained upon the village below, and their expression had become lost to the anxious Helen. She was talking at him. But she was thinking not of him so much as her sister. She knew how much it would mean to Kate if Charlie Bryant were brought into direct conflict with the police. So she was offering her warning.
Kate turned to her quietly. She ignored the reference to her hired men. She knew at whom her sister’s remarks were directed. She shook her head.
“Why worry about things, Sis?” she said, in her deliberate fashion. “Lawbreakers need to be cleverer folks than those who live within the law. I guess there won’t be much whisky run into Rocky Springs with Fyles around, and the police can do nothing unless they catch the boys at it. You’re too nervous about things.” She laughed quietly. “Why, the sight of a red coat scares you worse than getting chased by a mouse.”
The sound of Kate’s voice seemed to rouse Charlie from his gloomy contemplation of the village. He turned his eyes on the woman at his side—and encountered the half-satirical smile of hers—which were as dark as his own.