“And it is a good idea,” replied Young Dan, reflectively. “It sounds mighty good to me, of course. I’d like fine to see my name in the papers as a detective, but I wasn’t figgering on anything like that. I want to see that woman and her children decently fed. I don’t like her much, mind you—but she’s sure a courageous mother, and I pity her, and so would you if you knew Jim Conley. If we could scare him into earning a living for his family, then I’d certainly like your idea better’n mine.”
“But you ain’t reckonin’ on makin’ Luke Watt support Conley’s wife and kids all the rest of their lives, surely?” returned Mr. Wallace. “That would be goin’ a mite too far with it. He’d sooner go to jail than do that, I wouldn’t wonder. No, that won’t do! You got to make Conley get to work. Philanthropy’s a fine thing, but justice is a fine thing, too.”
“You’re right, Mr. Wallace—and you are the deputy-sheriff. I guess whatever you say goes. All I want to do is scare Jim Conley off of our trap-lines, and help his family, and smash that hound, Luke Watt.”
“Then we’d best sleep on it, an’ have a look for that revolver first thing in the morning,” said the other. “Maybe we’ll hit on a way of reconciling your hunger for philanthropy with my thirst for fame and promotion.”
“They sound as if they’d ought to pull all right in double-harness,” remarked the youth, with that smile which reminded the deputy-sheriff of Bill Tangler.
The deputy-sheriff wakened his guest at the first peep of day; and after breakfast they set out in a red pung behind a long-gaited three-year-old. Young Dan left his skins locked securely away in one of Mr. Wallace’s closets, with the understanding that Wallace would ship them to an honest fur-dealer immediately upon his return from the present expedition. This arrangement would be sure to prove advantageous to Young Dan and his partner, for Archie Wallace, as deputy-sheriff of the county, would obtain a higher price for the furs than a private trapper could possibly make any buyer consider reasonable. They stopped near the scene of the trapper’s swift and violent encounter with the storekeeper from Bean’s Mill, slipped on their snowshoes and entered the slanting field. Mr. Wallace regarded the deep marks of the struggle with chuckles of satisfaction. Then Young Dan led him about thirty yards away to a very small cut in the snow and dug up Luke Watt’s revolver. He handed the weapon to Wallace, who wiped it off, tied it up carefully in his handkerchief and stowed it away in his pocket.