"And in the presence of his son, Johnnie?"
"Just so. When we learned that a disguised detective was coming into the community, and that he would appear within a certain time, we began to look for him, and _you_ were the only stranger we discovered."
"And you wrote me that letter of warning?"
"And undoubtedly _you_ are the fellow who shot at me?"
"And I am happy to know that I have deprived you of the pleasure of handling firearms again for some time to come. Good morning, Mr. Brookhouse."
That was my final interview with Arch Brookhouse, but I saw him once more, for the last time, when I gave my testimony against him at the famous trial of the Trafton horse-thieves.
When the whole truth concerning the _modus operandi_ of the horse-thieves was made public at the trial, when the Traftonites learned that for five years they had harbored stolen horses under the very steeples of the town, and that those horses, when the heat of the chase was over, were boldly driven away across the country and toward the river before a lumbering coal cart, they were astounded at the boldness of the scheme, and the hardihood of the men who had planned it.
But they no longer marveled at their own inability to fathom so cunning a plot.
When Winter closed in, and the first snow mantled the farms of Groveland, the poor girl whom Johnny La Porte had reluctantly made his wife, closed her eyes upon this earthly panorama.
She never rallied after her return from the South. They said that she died of consumption, but her friends knew, whatever medical name might be applied to her disease at the end, that it began with a broken heart.
When it was over, and Nellie Ewing had no further need of his presence, Johnny La Porte,--who, held to his duty by the stern and oftentimes menacing eye of 'Squire Ewing, as well as by the fear which Carnes had implanted in his heart, had been as faithful and as gentle to his poor wife as it was in his worthless nature to be,--now found himself shunned in the community where he had once been petted and flattered.
There was no forgiveness in the heart of 'Squire Ewing, and his door was closed against his daughter's destroyer; for such the Grovelanders, in spite of his tardy reparation, considered Johnny La Porte.