"Harm?" Bill stood aghast.

"Yes--harm, man, harm." Kate's whole manner had suddenly undergone
a change. She seemed to be laboring under an apprehension that
almost unnerved her. "Don't you know who Fyles is after? He's after
whisky-runners. Don't you know why O'Brien warned you? Because he
believes, as pretty nearly everybody believes--Fyles, too--that your
brother Charlie is the head of a big gang of them. Mystery? Mystery?
There is no mystery at all--only danger, danger for your brother,
Charlie, while Fyles is on his track. You don't know Fyles. We, in
this valley, do. It is his whole career to bring whisky-runners under
the hammer of the law. If he can fix this thing on Charlie he will do
it."

The girl sprang from her seat in her agitation, and began to pace the
wet ground.

"Charlie? Though he's your brother, I tell you Charlie's the most
impossible creature alive. Everything he does, or is, somehow fosters
the conviction that he is against the law. He drinks. Oh, how he
drinks! And at night he's always on the prowl. His associates are
known whisky-runners, men whom the police, everybody, knows have not
the wit to inspire the schemes that are carried out under the very
noses of the authorities. What is the result? The police look for the
brain behind them. Charlie is clever, unusually clever; he drinks, his
movements are suspicious. He's asking for trouble, and God knows he's
going to find it."

A sudden panic was swiftly overwhelming Big Brother Bill. Though he
knew no fear for himself it was altogether a different matter where
his brother was concerned. He ran the great fingers of one hand
through his wet, fair hair, an action that expressed to the full his
utter helplessness.

"Say," he cried desperately, "Charlie's no crook. By God, I'll swear
it! He's just a weak, helpless babe, with a heart as big as a house.
Charlie a crook? Say, Miss Seton, you don't believe it, do you?"

Kate shook her head.

"I know he's not," she said gently. Then in a moment all her fierce
agitation returned. "But what's the use? Tell the folks in the valley
he isn't, and they'll laugh at you. Tell that to Fyles." She laughed
wildly. "Man, man, there's only one thing can save Charlie from this
stigma, from Fyles. Let him leave the valley. It's the only way." She
sighed and then went on, her manner becoming suddenly subdued and
rather hopeless. "But nothing on earth could move him from here,
unless it were a police escort tak