n hope. 'Tis no manner
av use worryin' tho'--let's go get that jury empannelled!" He uttered a
snorting chuckle as a thought seemed to strike him. "H-mm! Gully must
be getthin' tindher-hearthed! Th' last vag we had up behfure him he sint
um down for sixty days."

CHAPTER IX

_Take order now, Gehazi,
That no man talk aside
In secret with his judges
The while his case is tried,
Lest he should show them--reason
To keep a matter hid,
And subtly lead the questions
Away from what he did._
KIPLING.

"Hullo!" quoth Constable Yorke facetiously, "behold one cometh, with
blood in her eye! Egad! Don't old gal Lee look mad? Like a wet hen. I
guess she's just off the train and Nick hasn't met her. There'll be
something doing when she lands home."

It was about ten o'clock on the following morning. The three policemen
(Redmond had returned on a freight during the night) were standing
outside the small cottage, next the livery-stable, the abode of Nick Lee
and his spouse. After a casual inspection of their horses they were
debating as to possible suspects and their next course of action.
Yorke's remarks were directed at a stout, red-faced, middle-aged woman
who was just then approaching them. She looked flustered and angry and
was burdened down with parcels great and small. As she halted outside
the gate one of the packages slipped from her grasp and fell in the mud.
Unable to bend down, she gazed at it helplessly a moment. Yorke,
stepping forward promptly, picked up the parcel, wiped it and tucked it
under her huge arm.

"Thank ye, Mister Yorke," she ejaculated gratefully, "'tis a gentleman ye
are," she glowered a moment at the cottage, "which is more'n I kin say
fur that mon o' mine, th' lazy good-fur-nothin', . . . leavin' me t' pack
all these things from th' train!"

Like a tug drawing nigh to its mooring--and nearly as broad in the
beam--she came to anchor on the front steps and kicked savagely at the
door. A momentary glimpse they got of Nick Lee's face, in all its
rubicund helplessness, and then the door banged to. From an open window
soon emerged the sounds as of a domestic broil.

"Talk av Home Rule, an' 'Th' Voice that breathed o'er Eden'," murmured
Slavin. "Blarney me sowl! just hark tu ut now?"

From the cottage's interior came several high-pitched female squawks,
punctuated by the ominous sounds as of violent thumps being rained upon a