“That you never will, mark my words. I've taken the measure of our man before to-day. He's enough for fifty such as our precious guide. I knew what I was doing when I went back last time and left him.”
“Ah, they rather laughed at you then, didn't they?—hinted you were a bit afraid,” said the little man, with a cynical smile.
“They may laugh again, David, if they like; and the man that laughs loudest, let him be the first to come in my place next bout; he'll be welcome.”
“Well, I must say, this is strange language. I never talked like that, never. It's in contempt of duty, nothing less,” said Constable David.
“Oh, you're the sort of man that sticks the thing you call duty above everything else—above wife, life, and all the rest of it—and when duty's done with you it generally sticks you below everything else. I've been a fool in my time, David, but I was never a fool of that sort. I've never been the dog to drop a good jawful of solids to snap at its shadow. When I've been that dog I've quietly put my meat down on the plank, and then—There's another break-neck paving-stone—'bowders' you call them. No horse alive could keep its feet in such country.”
The three men rode some distance in silence. Then the little man, who kept a few yards in front, drew up and said,—
“You say the warrant was not on Wilson's body when you searched it. Is it likely that some of these dalesmen removed it before you came down?”
“Yes, one dalesman. But that job must have been done when another bigger job was done. It wasn't done afterwards. I was down next morning. I was sent after the old Scotchman.”
“Didn't it occur to you that the man to whose interest it was to have that warrant had probably got hold of it?”
“Yes; and that he'd burnt it, too. A man doesn't from choice carry a death-warrant next his heart. It would make a bad poultice.”