The Torch and Other Tales | Page 4

the damn birds, but I wouldn't have made a policeman my fast friend in this place if I weren't a straight man, and I'm a good bit surprised, Joseph, that you thought it worth your while to name such a thing to me. And I'll go out of a moony night when and where I please so long as it's a free country. So now then!"
He sulked a bit and didn't come to see the Fords for a week, though Joey was over often enough to see him, and Joseph felt rather interested to mark how the little man had taken it. But then 'Santa Claus' made friends again and came into Sunday supper and brought a pheasant along with him!
He made a lot of fun about it and pretended as he'd shot it in the coverts over night; and presently he told Joseph that, if he wanted to run him in, he'd best to go to Mercer's at Newton Abbot first and find out if he'd bought it all decent and in order, or if he had not. So the matter dropped, and all was firm friends again till the blow fell.
Poaching went on, and Joseph noted that Teddy was apt to be from home a bit and would often go away for a day or two. And the new head-keeper, who was sleepless on the job, traced where a car had come across one of the drives in Oakshott's by night, for the wheels had scored the grass; and where the thing had stood was a dead bird the blackguards had overlooked.
The pheasant had been shot roosting and an air-gun was the weapon, for they found the slug in it.
And the next thing was that just afore the end of the season, Joseph Ford set out to lend a hand with the job on his own, unknown to anybody but the head-keeper. He worked out of his business hours and off the regular policeman's beats, and the keeper, who now felt pretty sure one of his own under-men was in it, and he'd got treachery to deal with, put Joseph up to a secret plan. Oakshott's is a huge place and the six keepers kept there couldn't be everywhere; but an unknown seventh man might steal a march on the rogues and lie hid when 'twas given out the others were somewhere else. And that was done by Joseph, with a very startling result.
The season had near reached an end, when on a quiet moonlight night in January, Joseph kept his third secret watch at the edge of the North Wood. He'd got there at dusk, being off duty at the time, and there he bided; and then, just after moonrise, he saw a dog slip past him within ten yards, and he knew the dog very well, and his heart sank.
Behind the lurcher came her master, and Teddy, with something in his hand that glinted, popped by, silent as a ghost and was gone into the covers.
But Joseph knew he'd be bound to come out on the high road, same way he went in, so he bided there and an hour passed and then twenty minutes more, and meantime the policeman heard the purr of a motor and saw a small car without lights draw up on the dark side of the lane twenty yards off. There was only one man in it and Joseph felt glad there weren't more. He chanced Pegram for a minute then and nipped out on the driver just as he was lighting a cigarette. He proved to be a young fellow from so far off as Torquay, and he didn't put up no fight whatever, feeling no fear on his own account. He was working for wages and doing what he was told, and he caved in at once and obeyed the policeman's orders, that worse might not overtake him. So he sat tight and waited, and then Teddy Pegram and his dog and his air-gun crept out of the woods with a load of ten birds. They roosted in the spruce firs, you understand, and 'twas as easy to slay them as blackbeetles, for Teddy's eyes, helped by the moon, marked 'em above his head quick enough.
Then Joseph Ford walked out from behind the car and the little man saw his games were ended, for Ford was a very powerful chap and could have eaten him if he'd wanted to do so.
But Teddy used his tongue for all it was worth, though at first he didn't guess he was up against it.
"Lucky 'twas you," he said. "If it had been your mate, I'd have met with a difficulty. Very smart, Joseph! You've bowled me out all right, so we'll cry quits and least said soonest mended."
But the policeman wasn't in