It was no time for a discussion of motives. We ran across the meadow past the water tower and through the wood down to the boat-house. Far out on the lake we saw half a dozen men approdching the Glenarm grounds. They advanced steadily over the light snow that lay upon the ice, one man slightly in advance and evidently the leader.

“It’s Morgan!” exclaimed Bates. “And there’s Ferguson.”

Larry chuckled and slapped his thigh.

“Observe that stocky little devil just behind the leader? He’s my friend from Scotland Yard. Lads! this is really an international affair.”

“Rates, go back to the house and call at any sign of attack,” I ordered. “The sheriff‘s loose somewhere.”

“And Pickering is directing his forces from afar,” remarked Stoddard.

“I count ten men in Morgan’s line,” said Larry, “and the sheriff and his deputy make two more. That’s twelve, not counting Pickering, that we know of on the other side.”

“Warn them away before they get much nearer,” suggested Stoddard. “We don’t want to hurt people if we can help it,”—and at this I went to the end of the pier. Morgan and his men were now quite near, and there was no mistaking their intentions. Most of them carried guns, the others revolvers and long ice-hooks.

“Morgan,” I called, holding up my hands for a truce, “we wish you no harm, but if you enter these grounds you do so at your peril.”

“We’re all sworn deputy sheriffs,” called the caretaker smoothly. “We’ve got the law behind us.”

“That must be why you’re coming in the back way,” I replied.

The thick-set man whom Larry had identified as the English detective now came closer and addressed me in a high key.

“You’re harboring a bad man, Mr. Glenarm. You’d better give him up. The American law supports me, and you’ll get yourself in trouble if you protect that man. You may not understand, sir, that he’s a very dangerous character.”

“Thanks, Davidson!” called Larry. “You’d better keep out of this. You know I’m a bad man with the shillalah!”

“That you are, you blackguard!” yelled the officer, so spitefully that we all laughed.

I drew back to the boat-house.

“They are not going to kill anybody if they can help it,” remarked Stoddard, “any more than we are. Even deputy sheriffs are not turned loose to do murder, and the Wabana County Court wouldn’t, if it hadn’t been imposed on by Pickering, lend itself to a game like this.”

“Now we’re in for it,” yelled Larry, and the twelve men, in close order, came running across the ice toward the shore.

“Open order, and fall back slowly toward the house,” I commanded. And we deployed from the boat-house, while the attacking party still clung together,—a strategic error, as Larry assured us.