The hunt had begun in
midsummer, and it was now midwinter. Billy Loring, who was wanted for
murder, had been a hard man to find. But he was caught at last, and
Brokaw was keenly exultant. It was his greatest achievement. It would
mean a great deal for him down at headquarters.
In the rough and dimly lighted cabin his man sat opposite him, on a
bench, his manacled hands crossed over his knees. He was a younger man
than Brokaw--thirty, or a little better. His hair was long, reddish, and
untrimmed. A stubble of reddish beard covered his face. His eyes, too,
were blue--of the deep, honest blue that one remembers, and most
frequently trusts. He did not look like a criminal. There was something
almost boyish in his face, a little hollowed by long privation. He was
the sort of man that other men liked. Even Brokaw, who had a heart like
flint in the face of crime, had melted a little.
"Ugh!" he shivered. "Listen to that beastly wind! It means three days of
storm." Outside a gale was blowing straight down from the Arctic. They
could hear the steady moaning of it in the spruce tops over the cabin,
and now and then there came one of those raging blasts that filled the
night with strange shrieking sounds. Volleys of fine, hard snow beat
against the one window with a rattle like shot. In the cabin it was
comfortable. It was Billy's cabin. He had built it deep in a swamp, where
there were lynx and fisher cat to trap, and where he had thought that no
one could find him.
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