“Gone!” he said sneering; “some one’s lifted it but I guess you know where it is. Oh no, I forgot. You weren’t a dip, you were a second story man. Excuse me.”
He kept this heavy and malicious humor going until Trent’s imperturbability annoyed him.
“What a change!” he commented presently. “Me the officer and you the enlisted man who’s got to do as I say. You with your fast auto and your golf and society ways and me who used to be a cop.”
Winning no retort from his victim he leaned forward and pushed Trent roughly. He started back at the white wrath which transfigured the other’s face.
“Look here, Devlin,” Trent cried savagely, “you want me to hit you so you can prefer charges against me for striking an officer and have me disciplined. Listen to this: if you put your filthy hand on me again I won’t hit you, I’ll kill you.”
Towering and threatening he stood over the other. Devlin, who knew men and the ways of violence, looked into Trent’s face and recognized it was no idle threat he heard.
“That would be a hell of a fine trick,” he said, a little unsteadily, “to empty your gun in my back.”
“You know I wouldn’t do it that way,” Trent retorted. “Why should I let you off so easily as that?”
“When I get ready,” Trent said grimly, “I shall want you to realize what’s coming to you.”
“How?” Trent inquired. “You’ve tried every way there is to have me killed. If there’s a doubtful place where some boches may be hiding with bombs whom do you send to find out? You send Private Trent. I’m not kicking. I volunteered for the job. I came out to do what I could. My one disappointment is that my officer is not also a gentleman.”
“I’ll fix you,” he said again, “I’ll see Pershing pins a medal on you all right.”
Trent wondered what he meant. And he wondered why for a day or two Devlin goaded him no more. Instead he looked at him as one who knew another was marked down for death and disgrace. It was inevitable that Anthony Trent could never know how near to discovery he was. The odds are against the best breakers of law. The history of crime told him that the cleverest had been captured by some trifling piece of carelessness. Had Devlin some such clue, he wondered?
THERE came a night when Devlin’s men were called upon to clean out part of a forest from which many snipers had been firing, and where machine guns and their crews were known to be. It was work for picked men only and Trent admitted Devlin made a courageous leader.