Jessica had never in her life been an eavesdropper, but her excited senses made her anxious. Moreover, she was in a way committed, for she could not now emerge without being seen. As she waited, a man came from the path and joined the others. The sky had been overcast and gloomy, but the moon drew out just then and she saw that the new-comer, evidently a patrol, carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm. She also saw that one of the first three was the automobile's owner.
For some minutes they conversed in undertones, whose very secrecy inflamed her imagination. It seemed to her that they made some reference to the flume. Had there been another robbery of the sluice-boxes, and could they still suspect Hugh?
Dread and indignation made her bold. When they turned into the path she followed, treading noiselessly, till she was close behind them. They had stopped again, and were looking intently at a shadowy gray something that moved in the bottom below.
She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh:
"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the sluice-box. He often does that."
Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"--the rest was lost in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first speaker, sighted, and fired.
In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so much as the sound that followed it--a cry that had nothing animal-like, and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay huddled by the sluice-box.
In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow. She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again.
"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said contemptuously.
The white face stared up at them, venomous and writhing, turning about the circle as though searching for some one who was not there.
The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said.