The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-11-08
XXVIII.
AT THE BORDER OF THE STREAM

xxvIII ~.
 AT THE BORDER OF THE STREAM
 When they left the train. in the gray of the early morning. the spirs of the parish church at Gegantic looked down on them, and before them stretched the long street of the village. with its houses almost touching each other. ana tae long lines of fence. which divide the narrow strips of farmland. summing into the distances.
 Grimbleshaw was thinking of the few words that Beckwith had had time to exchange with him. Brief as the time was. Beckwith had found it sufficient to get the story of Billings and the knockdown. and to give his indorsenent of the judgment that Grimbleshaw had based theron Then he said. 'Tradrord is usually quite clear-sight- cd for a man who hasn't had the ad- vantages of a full legal training. and I was surprised when he said that pistol had ceased to have significance After you left made him see that 1t had a very important place in this af- fair Those broxes had held the mon ey and papers They were empty. Hence. the money and papers had been taken out. But these are nowhere about. Hence. they have been stolen The murder and the theft must be parts of the same crime. Now the pistol couldn't have been put there in asmuch as it was found when the vault was broken open. until after the theft had occurred No one had been in there after the night of the murder until the vault was broken open-' Therefore. it must have been put where it was found by whoever rob bed the vault after the murder was committed Yet Trafford. claiming to be a detective. tells us that the. pistol has ceased to be signihcacnti"
 An night long in his intervals of wakefulness these words had rung he had seen Horace Calden standing. flushed and stammering, with eyes fixed on the pistol that he had. on the spur of the moment. admitted to be his own What did it mean. and why had Beckwith. loyal as he was to his clients. been at such pains to put Traf- ford on a track that he seemed to have missed? At last the perplexitv of this question had almost banished the happiness of those last brief mo- ments with Judith. and he came to the nev days work weared and ap- prehensfve. anticipating come new trouble to throw cloud over the girl who was trusting him so fully.
 After breakfast. at a tiny but im- maculately clean inn. somewhat away from the hustle of the railway station. Trarord left him to his own devices and went about the business that had brought them there Grimbleshaw had just finished his first real letter to Judith when Trafford came in and. seating himself opposite him. said:
 .swe're to start in fifteen minutes That is. I am and take it you will want to as well. There's a white man at St. Martins. fifteen miles from. here. who's been there since three weeks ago Friday morning. Nobody knows where he dropped down from. for in these border towns they've learned not to ask questions. curious as they are by nature Their living comes largely from Americans who don't take oues- tioning kindly. but who do shed money with a good deal of freedom among the questioning kind. Your friend If thirty miles from St Martins. in g section that's not quite popular with law-abiding citizens. In fact. it's a section where there's a good deal oi doubt as to just where the line runs and that's held by a gang of outlaws who make their living out of the needs of fugitives from justice. If an Ameri- can officer attempts to serve a process Hntc n xx-h if. a Canadian attempts it. he's in the United States It's said that only once have officers of both countries joined in the effort. and since neither of them has been seen to this day il remaans a mystery just what they diC encounter as to Jurisdiction While St Martins is confessedly on Canadian soil. its excellent hotel. speaking com paraffvcIy, tempts many of the wealthier of the fugitives out of the of is popularly remed; but there arr always scouts out to give warning and it generally happens that befor' the officers can reach St. Martins th' man they're after is well on his way to some shelter where no officer vii follow him. and where he's sure prctectlon as long as nS pays UT price and keeps faith We're goini to make the effort to see this whit man at St. Martins. and we've got t' work a little carefully. or all wei really see is the strean of dust h makes on his way to the debatabl land"
 With the whole town looking on the, took the local for Tring Junction which would take them in the opposit direction to that which Trafford hal indicated as their destination. Twent. miles they went on the train withou sign of change in plan, but as the. drew up to a bare platform. in thu midst of what seemed an unbrokeI forest an auto. carrying two men snorted down the road and drew ul near the train Trafford was taIkini with the conductor of the train. wh'