The grumbling tone passed unnoticed by the policeman, who was thinking to himself that it was well for him that he was accompanied by a man of such strong determination and powerful physique, for Jagger’s fame as a fighting man was proverbial in the hill-country, and he was not likely to “take his sops” without a struggle.
“Was he by himself?” he inquired.
“Yes,” replied Inman, with a note of confidence.
The thought that Nancy might have guided her lover there had occurred to him on his way back, but that fear (or hope, for he hardly knew in which light he regarded it) had been removed when he called at his home and satisfied himself by his wife’s deep breathing that she was asleep in her room, with the door secured.
“A leather bag, did you say?” Stalker continued.
“Unless he’s changed it,” Inman replied impatiently. “You’ll search him, I suppose? It isn’t likely he’ll be wearing it in his button-hole like a posy!”
They had reached the stile and were about to pass over when the policeman became aware that someone was approaching from the direction of the Scar, and he whispered an instruction to his companion to secrete himself on the farther side. When Jagger was descending into the road, Stalker stepped forward and swept the light of his bull’s-eye upon him.
“I see you’ve getten it with you, my lad!” he said. “I’ve waited a long time; but there’s an end to t’ longest road. I suppose you’ll come along quietly?”
The suddenness of the encounter and the flash of the lamp startled Jagger; and his voice was not as steady as he had meant it to be when he replied:
“I’ve got it, right enough, and you’d have got it if you’d waited. I was on my way to find you; but I suppose those who hid it away picked it out ’at their game was up, and set you on my track to keep your nose off o’ their trail.”