9269
ALF an hour later Helen, waiting at the front gate, saw a horse and buggy turn the corner down the street. She recognized it as belonging to Keith Gordon. Indeed, Keith was driving, and with him was Carson Dwight.
Helen's heart bounded, a vast weight of incalculable responsibility seemed to lift itself from her. She unlatched the gate and swung it open.
“Oh, I thought you'd never come!” she smiled, as he sprang out and advanced to her. “I would have broken my oath of allegiance to the clan if you had waited a moment longer.”
“I might have known you couldn't keep it,” Dwight laughed. “Mam' Linda would have drawn it out of you just as you did out of me.”
“But are you going to tell her?” Helen asked, just as Keith, who had stepped aside to fasten his horse, came up.
“Yes,” Carson answered. “Keith and I made a lightning trip around and finally persuaded all the others. Invariably they would shake their heads, and then we'd simply tell them you wished it, and that settled it. They all seem flattered by the idea that you are a member.”
“But say, Miss Helen,” Keith put in, gravely, “we really must guard against Lewis and Linda's giving it away. It is a most serious business, and, our own interests aside, the boy's life depends on it.”
“Well, we must get them away from the cottage,” said Helen. “They are now literally surrounded by curious negroes.”
“Can't we have them up here in the parlor?” Carson asked. “Your father is down-town; we saw him as we came up.”
“Yes, that's a good idea,” Helen responded, eagerly. “The servants are all at the cottage; we'll make them stay there and have Uncle Lewis and Mam' Linda here.”
“Suppose I run down and give the message,” proposed Keith, and he was off with the speed of a ball-player on a home-run.
“Do you think there is any real danger to Mam' Linda's health in letting her know it suddenly?” Carson asked, thoughtfully.
“We must try to reveal it gradually,” Helen said, after reflecting for a moment. “There's no telling. They say great joy often kills as quickly as great sorrow. Oh, Carson, isn't it glorious to be able to do this? Don't you feel happy in the consciousness that it was your great, sympathetic heart that inspired this miracle, your wonderful brain and energy and courage that actually put it through?”
“Not through yet,” he laughed, depreciatingly, as his blood flowed hotly into his cheeks. “It would be just my luck right now to have this thing turn smack dab against us. We are not out of the woods yet, Helen, by long odds. The rage of that mob is only sleeping, and I have enemies, political and otherwise, who would stir it to white heat at a moment's notice if they once got an inkling of the truth.” He snapped his fingers. “I wouldn't give that for Pete's life if they discover our trick. Pole Baker had just come in town when Keith and I left. He said the Hillbend people were earnestly denying all knowledge of any lynching or of the whereabouts of Pete's body, and that some people were already asking queer questions. So, you see, if on top of that growing suspicion, old Lewis and Linda begin to dance a hoe-down of joy instead of weeping and wailing—well, you see, that's the way it stands.”
“Oh, then, perhaps we'd better not tell them, after all,” Helen said, crestfallen. “They are suffering awfully, but they would rather bear it for awhile than to be the cause of Pete's death.”
“No,” Carson smiled; “from the way you wrote, I know you have had about as much as you can stand, and we simply must try to make them comprehend the full gravity of the matter.”
At this juncture Keith came up panting from his run and joined them. “Great Heavens!” he cried, lifting his hands, the palms outward. “I never saw such a sight. I can stand some things, but I'm not equal to torture of that kind.”
“Are they coming?” Carson asked.
“Yes, there's Lewis now. Of course, I couldn't give them a hint of the truth down there in that swarm of negroes, and so my message that you wanted to see them here only seemed to key them up higher.”
Carson turned to Lewis, who, hat in hand, his black face set in stony rigidity, had paused near by and stood waiting respectfully to be spoken to.
“Uncle Lewis,” he said, “we've got good news for you and Linda, but a great deal depends on its being kept secret. I must exact a sacred promise of you not to betray to a living soul by word of mouth or act what I am going to tell you. Will you promise, Lewis?”
The old man leaned totteringly forward till his gaunt fingers closed upon one of the palings of the fence; his eyes blinked in their deep cavities. He made an effort to speak, but his voice hung in his mouth. Then he coughed, cleared his throat, and slid one of his ill-shod feet backward, as he always did in bowing, and said, falteringly: “God on high know, young marster, dat I'd keep my word wid you. Old Unc' Lewis would keep his word wid you ef dey was burnin' 'im at de stake. You been de bes' friend me 'n Mam' Lindy ever had, young marster. You been de kind er friend datiser friend. When you tried so hard t'other night ter save my boy fum dem men even when dey was shootin' at you en tryin' ter drag you down—oh, young marster, I wish you'd try me. I want ter show you how I feel down here in my heart. Dem folks is done had deir way; my boy is daid, but God know it makes it easier ter give 'im up ter have er young, high-minded white man lak you—”
“Stop, here's Mam' Linda,” Carson said. “Don't tell her now, Lewis; wait till we are inside the house; but Pete is alive and safe.”
The old man's eyes opened wide in an almost deathlike stare, and he leaned heavily against the fence.
“Oh, young marster,” he gasped, “you don't mean—you sholy can't mean—”
“Hush! not a word.” Carson cautioned him with uplifted hand, and they all looked at old Linda as she came slowly across the grass. A shudder of horror passed over Dwight at the change in her. The distorted, swollen face was that of a dead person, only faintly vitalized by some mechanical force. The great, always mysterious depths of her eyes were glowing with bestial fires. For a moment she paused near them and stood glaring with incongruous defiance as if nothing in mortal shape could mean aught but ill towards her.
“Carson has something—something very important to tell you, dear mammy,” Helen said, “but we must go inside.”
“He ain't got nothin' ter tell me dat I don't know,” Linda muttered, “lessen it is whar dey done put my chile's body. Ef you know dat, young marster—ef—”
But old Lewis had moved to her side, his face ablaze. He laid his hand forcibly on her shoulder. “Hush, 'oman!” he cried. “In de name er God, shet yo' mouf en listen ter young marster—listen ter 'im Linda, honey—hurry up—hurry up in de house!”
“Yes, bring her in here,” Carson said, with a cautious glance around, and he and Helen and Keith moved along the walk while Linda suffered herself, more like an automaton than a human being, to be half dragged, half led up the steps and into the parlor. Keith, who had vaguely put her in the category of the physically ill, placed an easy-chair for her, but from force of habit, while in the presence of her superiors, the old woman refused to sit. She and Lewis stood side by side while Carson carefully closed the door and came back.
“We've got some very, very good news for you, Mam' Linda,” said he; “but you must not speak of it to a soul. Linda, the men who took Pete from jail did not kill him. He is still alive and safe, so far, from harm.”
To the surprise of them all, Linda only stared blankly at the tremulous speaker. It was her husband who, full of fire and new-found happiness, now leaned over her. “Didn't you hear young marster?” he gulped; “didn't you hear 'im say we-all's boy was erlive?—erlive, honey?”
With an arm of iron Linda pushed him back and stood before Carson.
“You come tell me dat?” she cried, her great breast tumultuously heaving. “Young marster, 'fo' God I done had enough. Don't tell me dat now, en den come say it's er big mistake after you find out de trufe.”
“Pete's all right, Linda,” Carson said, reassuringly. “Keith and Helen will tell you about it.”
With an appealing look in her eyes Linda extended a detaining hand towards him, but he had gone to the door and was cautiously looking out, his attention being drawn to the sound of footsteps in the hall. It was two negro maids just entering the house, having left half a dozen other negroes on the walk in front. Going out into the hall, Carson commanded the maids and the loiterers to go away, and the astonished blacks, with many a curious, backward glance, made haste to do his bidding. A heavy frown was on his face and he shrugged his broad shoulders as he took his place on the veranda to guard the parlor door. “It's a ticklish business,” he mused; “if we are not very careful these negroes will drop on to the truth in no time.”
He had dismissed the idlers in the nick of time, for there was a sudden, joyous scream from Linda, a chorus of warning voices. The full import of the good news was only just breaking upon the stunned consciousness of the old sufferer. Screams and sobs, mingled with hysterical laughter, fell upon Carson's ears, through all of which rang the persistent drone of Keith Gordon's manly voice in gentle admonition. The door of the parlor opened and old Lewis came forth, his black face streaming with tears. Going to Carson he attempted to speak, but, unable to utter a word, he grasped the young man's hand, and pressing it to his lips he staggered away. A few minutes later Keith came out doggedly trying to divest his boyish features of a certain glorified expression that had settled on them.
“Good God!” he smiled grimly, as he fished a cigar from the pocket of his waistcoat, “I'm glad that's over. It struck her like a tornado. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. She'll literally fall on your neck. Good Lord! I've heard people say negroes haven't any gratitude—Linda's burning up with it. You are her God, old man. She knows what you did, and she knows, too, that we opposed you to the last minute.”
“You told her, of course,” Carson said, reprovingly.
“I had to. She was trying to dump it all on me as the only member of the gang present. I told her, the whole thing was born in your brain and braced up by your backbone. Oh yes, I told her how we fought your plan and with what determination you stuck to it in the face of all opposition. No, the rest of us don't deserve any credit. We'd have squelched you if we could. Well, I simply wasn't cut out for heroic things. The easy road has always been mine to any destination, but I reckon nothing worth much was ever picked up by chance.”
The two friends had gone down to the gate and Keith was unhitching his horse, when Helen came out on the veranda, and seeing Carson she hastened to him.
“She's up in my room,” she explained. “I'm going to keep her there for the rest of the day anyway. I'm glad now that we took so much precaution. She admits that we were right about that. She says if she had known Pete was safe she might have failed to keep it from the others. But she is going to help us guard the secret now. But oh, Carson, she is already begging to be allowed to see Pete. It's pitiful. There are moments even now when she even seems to doubt his safety, and it is all I can do to convince her. She is begging to see you, too. Oh, Carson, when you told me about it why did you leave out the part you took? Keith told us all about your fight against such odds, and how you sat up all night at the store to keep the poor boy company.”
“Keith was with me,” Carson said, flushing, deeply. “Well, we've got Pete bottled up where he is safe for the present, but there is no telling when suspicion may be directed to us.”
“We are going to win; I feel it!” said Helen, fervidly. “Don't forget that I'm a member of the clan. I'm proud of the honor,” and pressing his hand warmly she hurried back to the house.
9278
N his way to Blackburn's store the next morning to inquire about the prisoner, Carson met Garner coming out of the barber-shop, where he had just been shaved.
“Any news?” Carson asked, in a guarded voice, though they were really out of earshot of any one.
“No actualnews,” Garner replied, stroking his thickly powdered chin; “but I don't like the lay of the land.”
“What's up now?” Dwight asked.
“I don't know that there is anything wrong yet; but, my boy, discovery—discovery grim and threatening is in the very air about us.”
“What makes you think so, Garner?” They paused on the street crossing leading over to Blackbum's store.
“Oh, it's all due to old Linda and Lewis,” Garner said, in a tone of conviction. “You know I was dead against letting them know Pete was alive.”
“You think we made a mistake in that, then?” Carson said. “Well, the pressure was simply too strong, and I had to give way under it. But why do you think it was a bad move?”
“From the way it's turning out,” said Garner. “While Buck Black was shaving me just now he remarked that his wife had seen Uncle Lewis and Linda and that she thought they were acting very peculiarly. I asked him in as off-hand and careless a manner as I could what he meant, and he said that his wife didn't think they acted exactly as if they had just lost their only child. Buck said it looked like they were only pretending to be brokenhearted. I thought the best way to discourage him was to be silent, and so I closed my eyes and he went on with his work. Presently, however, he said bluntly, 'Look here, Colonel Garner'—Buck always calls me colonel—'where do you think they put that boy?' He had me there, you know, and I felt ashamed of myself. The idea of as good a lawyer as there is in this end of the State actually wiggling under the eye and tongue of a coon as black as the ace of spades! Finally I told him that, as well as I could gather, the Hillbend faction had put Pete out of the way, and were keeping it a secret to intimidate the negroes through their natural superstition. And what do you reckon Buck said. Huh, he'd make a good detective! He said he'd had his eye on the most rampant of the Hillbend men and that they didn't look like they'd lynched anything as big as a mouse. In fact, he thought they were on the lookout for a good opportunity in that line.”
“It certainly looks shaky,” Carson admitted, as they moved on to the store, where Blackburn stood waiting for them just inside the doorway.
“How did Pete pass the night?” Carson asked, his brow still clouded by the discouraging observations of his partner.
“Oh, all right,” Blackburn made reply. “Bob and Wade slept here on the counters. They say he snored like a saw-mill. They could hear him through the floor. Boys, I hate to dash cold water in your faces, but I never felt as shaky in my life.”
“What's the matter withyou?” Garner asked, with an uneasy laugh.
“I'm afraid a storm is rising in an unexpected quarter,” said the store-keeper, furtively glancing up and down the street, and then leading them farther back into the store.
“Which quarter is that?” Carson asked, anxiously.
“The sheriff is acting odd—mighty odd,” said Blackburn.
“Good Lord! you don't think Braider's really on our trail do you?” Garner cried, in genuine alarm.
“Well, you two can make out what it means yourselves,” and Blackburn pulled at his short chin whiskers doggedly. “It was only about half an hour ago—Braider's drinking some, and was, perhaps, on that account a little more communicative—he came in here, his face as red as a pickled beet, and smelling like a bunghole in a whiskey-barrel, and leaned against the counter on the dry-goods side.
“'I'm the legally elected sheriff of this county, ain't I?' he said, in his maudlin way, and I told him he was by a big majority.
“'Well,' he said, after looking down at the floor for a minute, 'I'll bet you boys think I'm a dem slack wad of an officer.'
“I didn't know what the devil he was driving at, and so I simply kept my mouth shut, but you bet your life I had my ears open, for there was something in his eye that I didn't like, and then when he said 'you boys' in that tone I began to think he might be on to the work we did the other night.”
“Well, what next?” Carson asked, sharply. “Well, he just leaned on the counter, about to slide down every minute,” Blackburn went on, “and then he began to laugh in a silly sort of way and said, 'ThemHillbendfellers are a slick article, ain't they?' Of course I didn't know what to say,” said the store-keeper, “for he had his eyes on me and was grinning to beat the Dutch, and that is the kind of cross-examination I fail at. Finally, however, I managed to say that the Hillbend folks had beaten the others to the jail, anyway, and he broke out into another knowing laugh. 'The Hillbend gang didn't have as fur to go,' he said. 'Oh, they are a slick article, an' they've got a slick young leader.'”
“What else?” asked Carson, who looked very grave and stood with his lips pressed together.
“Nothing else,” Blackburn answered. “Just then Wiggin, your boon companion and bosom friend, stopped at the door and called him.”
“Good Lord,and with Wiggin!” Garner exclaimed. “Our cake is dough, and it's good and wet.”
“Yes, he's a Wiggin man!” said Blackburn. “I've known he was pulling against Carson for some time. It seems like Braider sized up the situation, and decided if he was going to be re-elected himself he'd better pool issues with the strongest man, and he picked that skunk as the winner. I went to the door and watched them. They went off, arm in arm, towards the court-house.”
“Braider is evidently on to us,” Carson decided, grimly; “and the truth is, he holds us in the palm of his hand. If he should insist on carrying out the law, and rearresting Pete and putting him back in jail, Dan Willis would see that he didn't stay there long, and Wiggin would swear out a warrant against us as the greatest law-breakers unhung.”
“Oh yes, the whole thing certainly looks shaky,” admitted Blackburn.
“I tell you one thing, Carson,” Garner observed, grimly, “there are no two ways about it, we are going to lose our client and your election just as sure as we stand here.”
“I don't intend to give up yet,” Dwight said, his lip twitching nervously and a fierce look of determination dawning in his eyes. “We've accomplished too much so far to fail ignominiously. Boys, I'd give everything I have to ward this thing off from old Aunt Linda. She's certainly borne enough.”
The two lawyers went to their office, avoiding the numerous groups of men about the stores who seemed occupied with the different phases of the ever-present topic. They seated themselves at their desks, and Garner was soon at work. But there was nothing for Carson to do, and he sat gloomily staring through the open doorway out into the sunshine. Presently he saw Braider across the street and called Garner's attention to him. Then to their surprise the sheriff turned suddenly and came directly towards them.
“Gee, here he comes!” Garner exclaimed; “he may want to pump us. Keep a sharp eye on him, Carson. He may really not know anything actually incriminating, after all. Watch him like a hawk!”
9285
HE young men pretended to be deeply absorbed over their work when the stalwart officer loomed up in the doorway, his broad-brimmed hat well back on his head, the flush of intoxicants in his tanned face, his step unsteady.
“I hope I won't disturb you, gentlemen,” he said; “but you are two men that I want to talk to—I might say talk to as a brother.”
“Come in, come in, Braider,” Carson said; “take that chair.”
0283
As Braider moved with uncertain step to a chair, tilted it to one side to divest it of its burden of books, newspapers, and old briefs and other defunct legal documents, Garner with a wary look in his eye fished a solitary cigar from his pocket—the one he had reserved for a mid-day smoke—and prof-ered it.
“Have a cigar,” he said, “and make yourself comfortable.”
The sheriff took the cigar as absent-mindedly as he would, in his condition, have received a large banknote, and held it too tightly for its preservation in his big red hand.
“Yes, I want to talk to you boys, and I want to say a whole lot that I hope won't go any further. I've always meant well by you two, and hoped fer your success both in the law—and politics.”
Garner cast an amused glance, in spite of the gravity of the situation, at his partner, and then said, quite evenly, “We know that, Braider—we alwayshaveknown it.”
“Well, as I say, I want totalkto you. I've heard that an honest confession is good for the soul, if not for the pocket, and I'm here to make one, as honest as I kin spit it out.”
“Oh, that's it?” said Garner, and with a wary look of curiosity on his face he sat waiting.
“Yes, and I want to begin back at the first and sort o' lead up. It's hard to keep a fellow's political leaning hid, Carson, and I reckon you may have heard that I had some notion of casting my luck in with Wiggin.”
“After he began circulating those tales about me, yes,” Carson said, with a touch of severity; “not before, Braider—at least not when I worked as I did the last time for your own election.”
“You are plumb right,” the sheriff said, readily enough. “I flopped over sudden, I'll acknowledge; but that's neither here nor there.” He paused for a moment and the lawyers exchanged steady glances.
“He may want to make a bargain with us,” Garner's eyes seemed to say, but Carson's mind had grasped other and more dire possibilities as he recalled Blackburn's remark of a few minutes before. In fact all those assurances of good-will might mean naught else than that the sheriff—at the instigation of Wiggin and others—had come actually to arrest him as the leader of the men who had intimidated the county jailer and stolen away the State's prisoner. The thought seemed to be borne telepathically to Garner, for that worthy all at once sat more rigidly, more aggressively defiant in his chair, and the pen he was chewing was suspended before his lips. This beating about the bush, in serious things, at least, was not Garner's method.
“Well, well, Braider,” he said, with a change of tone and manner, “tell us right out what you want. The day is passing and we've got lots to do.”
“All right, all right,” agreed the intoxicated man; “here goes. Boys, what I'm going to say is a sort of per-personal matter. You've both treated me like a respectable citizen and officer of the law, and I've taken it just as if I fully deserved the honor. But Jeff Braider ain't no hypocrite, if heisa politician and hobnobs with that sort of riffraff. Boys, always, away down at the bottom of everything I ever did tackle in this life, has been the memory of my old mother's teachings, and I've tried my level best, as a man, to live up to 'em. I don't know as I ever come nigh committing crime—as I regard it—till here lately. Crime, they tell me, stalks about in a good many disguises. The crime I'm talking about had two faces to it. You could look at it one way and it would seem all right, and then from another side it would look powerful bad. Well, I first saw this thing the night the mob raided Neb Wynn's shanty and run Pete Warren out and chased him to your house, Carson. You may not want to look me in the eye ag'in, my boy, when I tell you, but I could have come to your aid a sight quicker that night than I did if I hadn't been loaded down with so many fears of injury to myself. As I saw that big mob rushing like a mad river after that nigger, I said to myself, I did, that no human power or authority could save 'im anyway, and that if I stood up before the crowd and tried to quiet them, that—well, if I wasn't shot dead in my tracks I'd kill myself politically, and so I waited in the edge of the crowd, hiding like a sneak-thief, till—till you did the work, and then I stepped up as big as life and pretended that I'd just arrived.”
“Oh!” Garner exclaimed, and he stared at the bowed head of the officer with a look of wonder in his eyes; and it was a look of hope, too, for surely no human being of exactlythisstamp would take unfair advantage of any one.
“That was thefirsttime,” Braider gulped, as he went on, his glance now directed solely to Carson. “My boy, I went to bed that night, after we jailed that nigger, feeling meaner than an egg-sucking dog looks when he's caught in the act. If there is anything on earth that will shame a man it is to see another display more moral and physical courage than he does, and you did enough of both that night to show me where I stood. It was a new thing to me, and it made me mad. I was a good soldier in the war—I wear a Confederate veteran's badge that was pinned onto my coat in public by the | beautiful daughter of a dead comrade—but being shot at in a bunch ain't the same as being theonlytarget, and I showed my limit.”
“Oh, you are exaggerating the whole thing,” Carson said, with a flush of embarrassment.
“No I ain't, Carson Dwight,” Braider said, feelingly, and he took out his red cotton handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “You showed me that night the difference between bravery, so-called, and the genuine thing. I reckon bravery for personal gain is a weak imitation of bravery that acts just out of human pity as yours did that night. Well, that ain't all. The next day I was put to a worse test than ever. It was noised about, you know, that a bigger mob than the first was rising. I stayed out of the centre of town as much as I could, for everywhere I went folks would look at me as if they thought I'd surely do something to protect the prisoner, and at home my wife was whimpering around all day, saying she was sure Pete was innocent, or enough so to deserve a trial, if not for himself for the sake of his mammy and daddy. But what was such a wavering thing as I was to do? I took it that seventy-five per cent, of the men who had backed me with their ballot in my election was bent on lynching the prisoner, and if I opposed them they would consider me a traitor. On the other hand, I was up against this: if I did put up a feeble sort of opposition and gave in easy under pressure, the conservative men, like some we have here in town, would say I didn't mean business or I'd have actually opened fire on the mob. You see, boys, I wasn't man enough to take a stand either way, and though I well knew what was coming, I went about lying like a dog—lying in my throat, telling everybody that the indications showed that the excitement had quieted down. I went home that night and told my wife all was serene, and I drank about a quart of rye whiskey to keep me from thinking about the business and went to bed, but my conscience, I reckon, was stronger than my whiskey, for I rolled and tumbled all night. It seemed to me that I was, with my own hands, tying the rope around that pore nigger's neck. There I lay, a sworn officer of the law, flat on my back with not enough moral courage in my miserable carcass to have killed a gnat. Carson, if I saw you once before my eyes that long night, I saw you five hundred times. Your speech rang over and over in my ears. I saw you stand there when a ball had already grazed your brow and defy them to shoot again. I saw that poor black boy clinging to your knees, and knew that the light of Heaven had shone on you, while I lay in the hot darkness of the bottomless pit.”
“God, you do put it strong!” Garner exclaimed.
“I'm not putting it half strong enough,” the sheriff went on. “I don't deserve to hold office even in a community half run by mob law. But I ain't through. I ain't through yet. I got up early that awful morning, and went out to feed my hogs at a pen that stands on a back street, and there a woman milking a cow told me that it was over Pete Warren was done for—guilty or not, he was done for. I went in the house and tried to gulp down my breakfast, faced by my wife, who wouldn't speak to me, and showed in other ways what she thought about the whole thing. She was eternally sighing and going on about old Mammy Lindy and her feelings. I first went to the jail, and there I was told that two mobs had come, the first the Hillbend crowd, who did the work, and the bigger mob that got there too late.”
Braider's voice had grown husky and he coughed. Garner stole a searching glance of inquiry at Carson, but Dwight, his face suffused with a warm look of pity for the speaker, was steadily staring through the open door.
“I ain't done yet, God knows I ain't,” the sheriff gulped. “That morning I felt meaner than any convict that ever wore ball and chain. If I'd been tried and found guilty of stabbing a woman in the back I don't believe I could have felt less like a man. I tried to throw it all off by thinking that I couldn't have done any good anyway, but it wouldn't work. Carson, you and your plucky stand for the maintenance of law was before me, and you wasn't paid for the work while I was. Huh! do you remember seeing me as you came out of Blackburn's store that morning, with your hair all tousled up and your eyes looking red and bloodshot?”
“Yes, I remember seeing you,” said Dwight. “I would have stopped to speak to you but—but I was in a hurry to get home.”
“Well, you may have heard that I used to be a sort of a one-horse detective,” Braider went on, “and I had acquired a habit of looking for the explanation of nearly every unusual thing I saw, and—well, you coming out of that store before it was opened for trade, while the shutters in the front was still closed, struck me as odd. Then again, remembering your big interest in Pete's case, somehow, it didn't seem to me—meeting you sudden that way—that you looked quite as downhearted as I expected. In fact, I thought you appeared sort o' satisfied over something.”
“Oh!” Garner exclaimed, all at once suspecting Braider of a gigantic ruse to entrap them. “You thought he looked chipper, did you? Well, I must say he looked exactly the other way to me when I first saw him that day.”
“Well, it started me to wondering, anyway,” went on the sheriff, ignoring Garner's interruption, “and I set to work to watch. I hung about the restaurant across the street, smoking a cigar and keeping my eyes on that store. After awhile I saw Bob Smith go in the store and then Wade Tingle. Then I saw a big tray of grub covered with a white cloth sent from the Johnston House, and Bob Smith come to the door and took it in, sending the coon that fetched it back to the hotel. Well, I waited a minute or two and then sauntered, careless-like, across and went in. I chatted awhile with Bob and Wade, noticing, I remember, that for a newspaper man Wade seemed powerful indifferent about gathering items about what had happened, and that Blackburn was busy folding up a tangled lot of short pieces of white sheeting. All this time I was looking about to see where that waiter full of grub had gone. Not a sign of it was in sight, but in a lull in the talk I heard the clink of crockery somewhere below me, and I caught on. Boys, I'm here to tell you that never did a condemned soul feel as I felt. I went out in the open air praying, actually praying, that what I suspected might be true. I started for the jail and on the way met Burt Barrett. I asked him for particulars, and when he said that the Hillbend mob had left word that nobody need even look for the remains of the boy my heart gave a big jump in the same way as it had when that clip and saucer collided in that cellar. I asked Burt if he noticed which way the mob tuck the prisoner, and he said down towards town. I asked him if it wasn't odd for Hillbend folks to go that way to hang a man, and he agreed that it was. Well, to make a long story short, I was on to your gigantic ruse, and God above knows what a load it took off of me. You had saved me, Carson—you had saved me from toting that crime to my grave. I knew you were the ringleader, for I didn't know anybody else who would have thought of such a plan. You are a sight younger man than I am, but you stuck to principle, while I shirked principle, duty, and everything else. Doing all that was hurting your political chances, and you knew it, but you stuck to what was right all the same.”
“Yes, he certainly has queered his political chances,” Garner said, grimly, with a look of wonder in his eye over the sheriff's frank confession. “But you, I think you said, were a Wiggin man,” he finished.
“Well, Wiggin and some othersthinkI am yet,” said Braider; “and I reckon I was till this thing come up; but, boys, I guess I've got a little smidgin of good left in me, for somehow Wiggin has turned my stomach. But I hain't got to what I was leading up to. Neither one of you hain't admitted that there is a nigger in that wood-pile yet, and I don't blame you for keeping it to yourselves. That is your business, but the time has come when Jeff Braider's got to do the right thing or plunge deeper into hellishness, and he's had a taste of what it means and don't want no more of it. I may lose all I've got by it. Wiggin and his gang may beat me to a cold finish next election, but from now on I'm on the other side.”
“Good,” said Garner; “that's the way to talk. Was that what you were leading up to, Braider?”
“Not altogether,” and the sheriff rose and stood over Carson, resting his hand on the young man's shoulder to steady himself. “My boy, I've come to tell you that the damnedest, blackest plot agin you that ever was laid has been hatched out.”
“What is that, Braider?” Carson asked, calmly enough under the circumstances.
“Wiggin and his gang have found out that a trick was played night before last. The Hillbend men convinced them that they didn't lynch anybody, and the Wiggin crowd smelt around until they dropped on to the thing. The only fact they are short on is where the boy is hid. They think he is in the house of one of the negro preachers. Wiggin come to me, not half an hour ago, and considering me one of his stand-bys, he told me all about it. The scheme is for me to arrest Pete and jail 'im on the charge of murder and then to arrest you fer being the ringleader of a jail-breaking gang, who preaches law and order in public for political gain and breaks both in secret.”
“And what do they think will become of Pete?” Carson asked, a touch of supreme bitterness in his tone.
“Wiggin didn't say; but I know what would happen to him. The seeds of bloody riot are being strewn broadcast by the handful. They've been to every member of the crowd that lynched Sam Dudlow and warned them, on their lives, not to repeat the statement that Dudlow had said Pete was innocent. They told the lynchers that you two lawyers were on the hunt for men who had heard the confession and intend to use that as evidence against them.”
“Ah, thatisslick, slick!” Garner muttered.
“Slick as double-distilled goose-grease,” said Braider. “The lynchers are denying to friend or foe that Dudlow said a word, and the news is spreading like wildfire that Pete was Dudlow's accomplice, and that you, Carson, are trying, with a gang of town dudes, to carry your point by main, bull-headed force.”
“I see, I see.” Carson had risen and with a deep frown on his face stood leaning against the top of his desk. He extended his hand to the officer and said, “I appreciate your telling me all this, Braider, more than I can say.”
“What's the good of my telling you if the news doesn't benefit you?” the sheriff asked. “Carson, I want to see you win. I ain't half a man myself, but I've got two little boys just starting to grow up, and I wish they could be like you—a two-legged bull-dog that clamps his teeth on what's right and won't let loose. Carson, you've got a chance—a bare chance—to get your man out alive.”
“What's that?” Dwight asked, eagerly.
“Why, let me hold the mob in check by promising to arrest Pete, and you get some trusty feller to take him in a buggy to-night through the country to Chattanooga. It would be a ticklish trip, and you want a man that won't get scared at his shadow, for on every road out of Darley, men will be on the lookout, but if you once got him there he would be absolutely safe, for no mob would go out of the State to do work of that sort. Getting a good man is the main thing.”
“I'll do it myself,” Dwight said, firmly. “You?” Garner cried. “That's absurd!”
“I'm the only one whocoulddo it,” Carson declared, “for Pete would not go with any one else.”
“I really believe you are right,” Garner agreed, reluctantly; “but it is a nasty undertaking after all you've been through.”
“By gum!” exclaimed Braider, extending his hand to Dwight. “I hope you will do it. I want to see you complete a darn good all-round job.” > “Well, youarean officer of the law,” Garner observed, with amusement written all over his rugged face, “asking a man to steal your own prisoner.”
“What else can I do that's at all decent?” Braider asked. “Besides, do you fellows know that there never has been any written warrant for Pete's arrest. I started to jail him without any, and old Mrs. Parsons turned him loose. The only time he was put in jail was by Carson himself. By George! as I look at it, Carson, you have every right to take him out of jail, by any hook or crook, since you was responsible for him being there instead of hanging to a limb of a tree. I tell you, my boy, there ain't any law on earth that can touch you. Nobody is prepared to testify against Pete, and if you will get him to Chattanooga and keep him there for a while he can come back here a free man.”
“I have friends there who will look after him,” Dwight said. “I'll start with him to-night.”
9297
HAT afternoon Keith Gordon went to Warren's to tell Helen of Carson's plan for the removal of Pete. She received him in the big parlor, and he found her seated at one of the wide windows which, in summer-time, was used as a doorway to the veranda.
“I met the conquering hero, Mr. Sanders, on my way down,” he said, lightly. “I presume he has been here as usual.”
“He only called to say good-bye,” Helen answered, a little coldly.
“Oh, thatisnews,” Keith pursued, in the same tone. “Rather sudden, isn't it?”
“No, his affairs would not permit a longer visit,” said Helen. “But you didn't come to talk of him; it was something about Pete.”
She sat very still and rigid while he went into detail as to the whole situation, and when he had finished she rested her chin in her white hand, and he saw her breast rise and fall tremulously.
“There is danger attached to the trip,” she said, without looking at him. “I know it, Keith, by the way you talk.”
He deliberated for an instant, then acknowledged: “Yes, there is, and to my way of thinking, Helen, there is a great deal. Wade and I tried to get him to consent to some other plan, but he wouldn't hear to it. He's so anxious to put it through all right that he won't trust to any substitute, and he won't let any one else go along, either. He thinks it would attract too much attention.”
“In what particular way does the danger lie?” Helen faltered, and Keith saw her pass her hand over her mouth as if to reprimand her lips for their unsteadiness.
“I'd tell you there wasn't any at all, as Carson would have me do,” Keith declared; “but when a fellow has the courage of an army of men, I believe in his getting the full credit for it. You want to know and I'm going to tell you. He's been through ticklish places enough in this business, but going over that lonely road to-night, when a thousand furious men may be on the lookout for him, is the worst thing he has tackled. It wouldn't be so very dangerous to a man who would throw up his hands if accosted, but, Helen, if you could have seen Carson's face when he was telling us about it, you would know that he will actually die rather than see Pete taken. He's reckless of late, anyway.”
“Reckless!” Helen echoed, and this time she gave Keith a full, almost pleading stare.
“Oh yes, you know he's reckless. He's been so ever since Mr. Sanders came. It looks to me like—well, I reckon a man can understand another better than a woman can, but it looks to me like Carson is doing the whole thing because you feel so worried about it.”
“You certainly wrong him there,” Helen declared.
“He is doing it simply because it is right.”
“Oh, of course he thinks it'sright,” Keith returned, with a boyish smile; “he thinks everythingyouwant is right.”
When Keith had gone Helen went at once to Linda's cottage to tell her the news, putting it in as hopeful a light as possible, and not touching upon the danger of the journey. But the old woman had a very penetrating mind, and she stood in the doorway with a deeply furrowed brow for several minutes without saying anything, then her observation only added to Helen's burden of anxiety.
“Chile,” she said, “ol' Lindy don't like de way dat looks one bit. You say young marster got ter steal off in de dead o' night, en dat he cayn't even let me see my boy once 'fo' he go. Suppin up, honey—suppin up! De danger ain't over yit. Honey, I know what it is,” Linda groaned; “dem white folks is rising ergin.”
“Well, even if that is the reason”—Helen felt the chill hand of fear grasp her heart at the admission—“even if that is it, Carson will get him away safely.”
“Ef hekin, honey, ef hekin!” Linda moaned.
“'God been behind 'im all thoo so fur, but I seed de time when de Lawd Hisse'f seem ter turn His back on folks tryin' ter do dey level best.”
Leaving Linda muttering and moaning in the cottage doorway, the girl went with a despondent step back to the big empty house and wandered aimlessly about the various rooms.
As night came on and her father returned from town, she met him on the veranda and gave him a kiss of greeting, but she soon discovered that he had heard nothing. In fact, he was one of the many who still believed that Pete had been lynched, the vague whisperings to the contrary not having reached his old ears. She sat with him at the tea-table, and then went up to her room and lighted her lamp on her bureau. As she did so she looked at her reflection in the mirror and started at the sight of her grave features. Then a flash from her wrist caught her eye. It was the big diamond of a beautiful bracelet which Sanders had given her, and as she looked at it she shuddered. Was she superstitious? She hardly knew, and yet a strange idea took possession of her brain. Would her unspoken prayers for Carson Dwight's safety in his perilous expedition be answered while she wore that gift from another man, after she had spurned Carson's great and lasting love, and allowed the poor boy to think that she had given herself heart and soul to this stranger? She hesitated only a moment, and opening a jewel box she unclasped the bracelet and put it away. Then with a certain lightness of heart she went to the window overlooking the grounds of the Dwight homestead and stood there staring out in the hope of seeing Carson. But he was evidently not at home, for no lights were visible except a dim one in the invalid's room and one in old Dwight's chamber adjoining.
At ten o'clock Helen disrobed herself still with that awful sense of impending tragedy hovering over her. The oil in her lamp was almost out, and for this reason only she extinguished the flame, else she would have kept it burning through the night to dissipate the material shadows which seemed to accentuate those of her spirit. She heard the old grandfather clock on the stair-landing below solemnly strike ten, then the monotonous tick-tack as the great pendulum swung to and fro. Sleep was out of the question. A few minutes before eleven she heard a soft foot-fall on the walk in the front garden, and going out on the veranda she looked down.
The bowed form of a woman was moving restlessly back and forth from the steps to the gate.
“Is that you, mammy?” Helen asked, softly.
The handkerchiefed head was lifted and Linda looked up.
“Yes, it's me, honey. I can't sleep. What de use? Kin er mother sleep when her chile is comin' in de worl'? No, you know she can't; neither kin she close 'er eyes when she's afeared dat same chile is gwine out of it. I'm afeared, honey. I'm afeared ter-night wuss dan all. Seem lak de evil sperits des been playin' wid us all erlong—makin' us think we gwine ter come thoo, so't will hit us harder w'en it do strack de blow. You go on back ter yo' baid, honey. You catch yo' death er cold. I'm gwine home right now.”
Helen saw the old woman disappear round the corner of the house, but she remained on the veranda. The clock was striking eleven, and she was about to go in, when she heard the dull beat of hoofs on the carriage-drive of the Dwight place, and through the half moonlight she saw a pair of horses, Carson's best, harnessed to a buggy and driven by their owner slowly and cautiously going towards the big gate. Dwight himself got down to open it. She heard his low commands to the spirited animals as he led them forward by the bit, and then he stepped back to close and latch the gate. She had an overpowering impulse to call out to him; but would it be wise? His evident precaution was to keep his mother from knowing of his departure, and Helen's voice might attract the attention of the invalid and seriously hamper him in his undertaking. With her hands pressed to her breast she saw him get into the buggy, heard his calm voice as he spoke to the horses, and then he was off—off to do his duty—andhers. She went back to her room and laid down, haunted by the weird thought that she would never see him again. Then, all at once, she had a flash of memory which sent the hot blood of shame from her heart to her brain, and she sat up, staring through the darkness.Thatwas the man against whom she had steeled her heart for his conduct, his youthful indiscretions with her unfortunate brother. Was Carson Dwight to go forever unpardoned—unpardoned by such asshewhilethatsort of soul held suffering sway within him?
The hours of the long night dragged by and another day began. Keith came up after breakfast and related the particulars of Carson's departure. Graphically he recounted how the gang had robed the ill-starred Pete in grotesque woman's attire and seen him and Carson safely in the buggy, but that was all that could be told or foretold. As for Keith, he and all the rest were trying to look on the bright side, and they would succeed better but for the long face Pole Baker had drawn when he came into town early that morning and heard of the expedition.
“So he was uneasy?” Helen said, in perturbation.
Keith hesitated for a moment and then answered: “Yes, to tell you the truth, Helen, it almost staggered him. He is a good-natured, long-headed chap, and he lost his temper. He cursed us all out for a silly, stupid set for allowing Carson to take such a risk. Finally we drew out of him what he feared. He said the particular road Carson took to reach the State line was actually alive with men, who had been keyed up to the highest tension by Wiggin and his followers. Pole said they had their eye on that road particularly because it was the most direct way to Chattanooga, and that Carson wouldn't have one chance in five hundred of passing unmolested. He said the idea of fooling men of that stamp by putting Pete in a woman's dress in the company of Carson, of all human beings, was the work of insane men.”
“It really was dangerous!” said Helen, pale to the lips.
“Well, we meant it for the best”—Keith defended himself and his friends—“we didn't know the road was a particularly dangerous one. In fact, Pole didn't learn it himself until several hours after Carson had left. I really believe he'd have helped us do what we did if he had been with us last night. We did the best we could; besides, Carson was going to have his way. Every protest we made was swept off with that winning laugh of his. In spite of the gravity of the thing, he kept us roaring. I have never seen him in better spirits. He was bowing and scraping before that veiled and hooded darky as if he were the grandest lady in the land. He even insisted on handing Pete into the buggy and protecting his long skirt from the dusty wheel. We never realized what we had done till he was gone and we all gathered in the store and talked it over. Blackburn, I reckon, being the oldest, was the bluest. He almost cried. Helen, I've seen popular men in my life, but I never saw one with so many friends as Carson. He's an odd combination. His friends love him extravagantly and his enemies hate him to the limit.”
Late that afternoon, unable to wait longer for news of Carson, Helen went down to his office. Garner was in, and she surprised a look of firmly grounded uneasiness on his strong face. For a moment it was as if he intended to make some equivocal reply to her inquiry, but threw aside the impulse as unworthy of her courage and intelligence.
“To be candid,” he said, as he stood stroking his chin, which bristled with open disregard for appearances under stress of more important things—“to tell you the whole truth, Miss Helen, I don't like the lay of the land.” Then he told her that the sheriff had just informed him of the whispered rumor that a body of men had met Carson Dwight and his charge near the State line about three o'clock in the morning. What had taken place the sheriff didn't know, beyond the fact that the men had disbanded and returned to their homes all gravely uncommunicative. What it meant no one but the participants knew. To face the facts, it looked very much as if harm had really come to one, if not to both, of the two. The mob had evidently been wrought to a high pitch of resentment for the trick Carson had played in stealing the prisoner from jail, and this second attempt to get him away may have enraged his enemies to outright violence against him, especially as Dwight was a fighting man and very hot-headed when roused.
Unable to discuss the matter in her depressed frame of mind, Helen left him and went home. The whole story being now out, she found her father warmly excited and disposed to talk about it in all its phases, the earliest as well as the latest, but she had no heart for it, and after urging the Major not to speak of it to Linda she went supperless to her room.
Two hours passed. The dusk had given way to the deeper darkness of evening. The moon had not yet risen and the starlight from a partly clouded sky was not sufficiently luminous to aid the vision in reaching any considerable distance, and yet from one of the rear windows of her room, where she stood morosely contemplative, she could see the vague outlines of Linda's cottage. It was while she was looking at the doorway of the little domicile, which stood out above the shrubbery of the rear garden as if dimly lighted from a candle within, that she saw something which caused her heart to suddenly bound. It was the live coal of a cigar, and the smoker seemed to be leaving the cottage, passing through the little gateway, and entering her father's grounds. What more natural than for Carson, if he had returned safely, to go at once to the mother of the boy with the news? Helen almost held her breath. She would soon be reasonably sure, for if it were Carson he would take a diagonal direction to reach the gateway to the Dwight homestead. Was it Carson, or—could it be her father? Her heart sank over the last surmise, and then it bounded again, for the coal of fire, fitfully flaring, was moving in the direction prayed for. Down the stairs Helen glided noiselessly, lest the Major hear her, and yet rapidly. When she reached the front veranda and descended the steps to the grass of the lawn she was just in time to see the red disk passing through the gateway to Dwight's. No form was visible, and yet she called out firmly and clearly: “Carson! Carson!” The coal of fire paused, described a curve, and she bounded towards it.
“Did you call me?” Carson Dwight asked, in a voice so low from hoarseness that it hardly reached her ears.
“Yes, wait!” she panted. “Oh, you've gotten back!”
They now stood face to face.
“Oh yes,” he laughed, with a gesture towards his throat of apology for his hoarseness; “did you think I was off for good?”
“No, but I was afraid”—she was shocked by the pallor of his usually ruddy face, the many evidences of fatigue upon him, the nervous way he stood holding his hat and cigar—“I was afraid you had met with disaster.”
“But why did you feel that way?” he asked, reassuringly.
“Oh, from what Keith said in general, and Mr. Garner, too. They declared the road you took was full of desperadoes, and—”
“I might have known they would exaggerate the whole business,” Carson said, with a smile. “Why, I've just come from Mam' Linda's. I went to tell her that Pete is all right and as sound as a dollar. He's in the charge of good, reliable friends of mine up there, and wholly out of danger. In fact, he's as happy as a lark. When I left him he was surrounded by a gang of as trifling scamps as himself bragging about his numerous escapes and—he's generous—my importance in the community we live in. Well, he's certainly beenimportantenough lately.”
“But did you not meet with—with any opposition at all?” Helen went on, insistently.
“Oh, well”—he hesitated, struck a match, and applied it to his already lighted cigar—“we lost our way, for one thing. You see, I was a little afraid to carry a light, and it was hard to make out the different sign-boards, and, all in all, it was a slow trip, but we got through all right. And hungry! Gee whiz! We struck a restaurant in the outskirts of Chattanooga about sunup, and while that fellow was cooking us some steak and making coffee we could have eaten him alive. If Mam' Linda could have seen her boy eat she would have no fears as to his bodily condition.”
“But didn't you meet some men who stopped you?” Helen asked, staring steadily into his eyes.
He blinked, flicked the ashes from his cigar, and said: “Yes, we did, and they were really on the war-path, but they seemed very reasonable, and when I had talked to them and explained the matter from our stand-point—why, they—they let us go.”
They had gone into the grounds and were near the main walk when the gate was opened and a man came striding towards them. It was Jeff Braider.
“Oh, I've been looking for you everywhere, Carson,” he cried, warmly, shaking Dwight's hand. “I heard you'd got back, but I wanted to see you with my own eyes. Lord, Lord, my boy, if I'd known the awful trouble I was getting you into I'd never have let you take that road. I've just heard the whole story. For genuine pluck and endurance you certainly take the rag off the bush. Why, nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have given up the game, but you, you young bull-dog—”
“Carson, Carson! are you down there?” It was a man's voice from an upper window.
“Yes, father, what is it?”
“Your mother wants to see you right now. She's waked up and is worrying. Come on in.”
“You'll both excuse me for just a moment, I know,” Carson said, as if glad of the interruption. “I'll be back presently. I haven't seen my mother since I returned, and she is very nervous and easily excited.”