“You’ve made us lose valuable time, besides yelling our heads off to get you to stop. Don’t you know how far such sounds travel in the night?”
“My horse was running away,” snapped Tom. “Didn’t you have sense enough to know it?”
“Ah! That was the trouble, eh?” exclaimed the other policeman. “We’ve been stalking big game, an’ took you to be one of ’em.”
“Smugglers?” queried Tom, excitedly.
“Where’s the rest of your crowd?” queried Ashe, abruptly. “Give an account of yourself—fast, too. We haven’t an instant to spare.”
His peremptory tone jarred harshly on Tom Clifton’s sensibilities, especially after all the excitement he had gone through. But, excusing it on the ground of the urgency of the policeman’s business, the lad, in brief sentences, told his story.
“I knew it!” exclaimed Billy Ashe, almost violently, as the last words fell from his lips. “One of the nicest bits of police work that’s been done for months all gone for nothing because a nervy kid just bobs up in time to spoil it.”
“How have I done anything to hinder you?” demanded Tom, as angrily as the trooper.
“But for you we could have tracked the slickest band of smugglers in Canada to their destination. We’ve been on their trail for hours.”
“You haven’t lost much time on me.”