diff options
Diffstat (limited to '24799.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 24799.txt | 7016 |
1 files changed, 7016 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/24799.txt b/24799.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85c5f2b --- /dev/null +++ b/24799.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7016 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Escape of Mr. Trimm, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Escape of Mr. Trimm + His Plight and other Plights + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: March 11, 2008 [EBook #24799] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM + + + + +[Illustration: NOBODY PAID ANY ATTENTION TO MR. TRIMM.--_Frontispiece_ +(_Page 18._)] + + + + +THE ESCAPE +OF MR. TRIMM + +_HIS PLIGHT AND OTHER PLIGHTS_ + +BY + +IRVIN S. COBB + +AUTHOR OF +OLD JUDGE PRIEST, +BACK HOME, ETC. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, 1912 AND 1913 + +BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT, 1913 + +BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT, 1913 + +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + +[Transcriber's Note: A List of Illustrations has been added.] + + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM 3 + + II. THE BELLED BUZZARD 54 + + III. AN OCCURRENCE UP A SIDE STREET 79 + + IV. ANOTHER OF THOSE CUB REPORTER STORIES 96 + + V. SMOKE OF BATTLE 142 + + VI. THE EXIT OF ANNE DUGMORE 179 + + VII. TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN 202 + + VIII. FISHHEAD 244 + + IX. GUILTY AS CHARGED 260 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + NOBODY PAID ANY ATTENTION TO MR. TRIMM. Frontispiece + + "TWO LONG WING FEATHERS DRIFTED SLOWLY DOWN." Facing page 70 + + "I WAS THE ONE THAT SHOT HIM--WITH THIS THING HERE." Facing Page 164 + + HE DRAGGED THE RIFLE BY THE BARREL, SO THAT ITS BUTT + MADE A CROOKED FURROW IN THE SNOW. Facing Page 193 + + + + +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM + + + + +I + +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM + + +Mr. Trimm, recently president of the late Thirteenth National Bank, was +taking a trip which was different in a number of ways from any he had +ever taken. To begin with, he was used to parlor cars and Pullmans and +even luxurious private cars when he went anywhere; whereas now he rode +with a most mixed company in a dusty, smelly day coach. In the second +place, his traveling companion was not such a one as Mr. Trimm would +have chosen had the choice been left to him, being a stupid-looking +German-American with a drooping, yellow mustache. And in the third +place, Mr. Trimm's plump white hands were folded in his lap, held in a +close and enforced companionship by a new and shiny pair of Bean's +Latest Model Little Giant handcuffs. Mr. Trimm was on his way to the +Federal penitentiary to serve twelve years at hard labor for breaking, +one way or another, about all the laws that are presumed to govern +national banks. + + * * * * * + +All the time Mr. Trimm was in the Tombs, fighting for a new trial, a +certain question had lain in his mind unasked and unanswered. Through +the seven months of his stay in the jail that question had been always +at the back part of his head, ticking away there like a little watch +that never needed winding. A dozen times a day it would pop into his +thoughts and then go away, only to come back again. + +When Copley was taken to the penitentiary--Copley being the cashier who +got off with a lighter sentence because the judge and jury held him to +be no more than a blind accomplice in the wrecking of the Thirteenth +National--Mr. Trimm read closely every line that the papers carried +about Copley's departure. But none of them had seen fit to give the +young cashier more than a short and colorless paragraph. For Copley was +only a small figure in the big intrigue that had startled the country; +Copley didn't have the money to hire big lawyers to carry his appeal to +the higher courts for him; Copley's wife was keeping boarders; and as +for Copley himself, he had been wearing stripes several months now. + +With Mr. Trimm it had been vastly different. From the very beginning he +had held the public eye. His bearing in court when the jury came in with +their judgment; his cold defiance when the judge, in pronouncing +sentence, mercilessly arraigned him and the system of finance for which +he stood; the manner of his life in the Tombs; his spectacular fight to +beat the verdict, had all been worth columns of newspaper space. If Mr. +Trimm had been a popular poisoner, or a society woman named as +co-respondent in a sensational divorce suit, the papers could not have +been more generous in their space allotments. And Mr. Trimm in his cell +had read all of it with smiling contempt, even to the semi-hysterical +outpourings of the lady special writers who called him The Iron Man of +Wall Street and undertook to analyze his emotions--and missed the mark +by a thousand miles or two. + +Things had been smoothed as much as possible for him in the Tombs, for +money and the power of it will go far toward ironing out even the +corrugated routine of that big jail. He had a large cell to himself in +the airiest, brightest corridor. His meals were served by a caterer from +outside. Although he ate them without knife or fork, he soon learned +that a spoon and the fingers can accomplish a good deal when backed by a +good appetite, and Mr. Trimm's appetite was uniformly good. The warden +and his underlings had been models of official kindliness; the +newspapers had sent their brightest young men to interview him whenever +he felt like talking, which wasn't often; and surely his lawyers had +done all in his behalf that money--a great deal of money--could do. +Perhaps it was because of these things that Mr. Trimm had never been +able to bring himself to realize that he was the Hobart W. Trimm who had +been sentenced to the Federal prison; it seemed to him, somehow, that +he, personally, was merely a spectator standing to one side watching the +fight of another man to dodge the penitentiary. + +However, he didn't fail to give the other man the advantage of every +chance that money would buy. This sense of aloofness to the whole thing +had persisted even when his personal lawyer came to him one night in the +early fall and told him that the court of last possible resort had +denied the last possible motion. Mr. Trimm cut the lawyer short with a +shake of his head as the other began saying something about the chances +of a pardon from the President. Mr. Trimm wasn't in the habit of letting +men deceive him with idle words. No President would pardon him, and he +knew it. + +"Never mind that, Walling," he said steadily, when the lawyer offered to +come to see him again before he started for prison the next day. "If +you'll see that a drawing-room on the train is reserved for me--for us, +I mean--and all that sort of thing, I'll not detain you any further. I +have a good many things to do tonight. Good night." + +"Such a man, such a man," said Walling to himself as he climbed into +his car; "all chilled steel and brains. And they are going to lock that +brain up for twelve years. It's a crime," said Walling, and shook his +head. Walling always said it was a crime when they sent a client of his +to prison. To his credit be it said, though, they sent very few of them +there. Walling made as high as fifty thousand a year at criminal law. +Some of it was very criminal law indeed. His specialty was picking holes +in the statutes faster than the legislature could make them and provide +them and putty them up with amendments. This was the first case he had +lost in a good long time. + + * * * * * + +When Jerry, the turnkey, came for him in the morning Mr. Trimm had made +as careful a toilet as the limited means at his command permitted, and +he had eaten a hearty breakfast and was ready to go, all but putting on +his hat. Looking the picture of well-groomed, close-buttoned, iron-gray +middle age, Mr. Trimm followed the turnkey through the long corridor and +down the winding iron stairs to the warden's office. He gave no heed to +the curious eyes that followed him through the barred doors of many +cells; his feet rang briskly on the flags. + +The warden, Hallam, was there in the private office with another man, a +tall, raw-boned man with a drooping, straw-colored mustache and the +unmistakable look about him of the police officer. Mr. Trimm knew +without being told that this was the man who would take him to prison. +The stranger was standing at a desk, signing some papers. + +"Sit down, please, Mr. Trimm," said the warden with a nervous +cordiality. "Be through here in just one minute. This is Deputy Marshal +Meyers," he added. + +Mr. Trimm started to tell this Mr. Meyers he was glad to meet him, but +caught himself and merely nodded. The man stared at him with neither +interest nor curiosity in his dull blue eyes. The warden moved over +toward the door. + +"Mr. Trimm," he said, clearing his throat, "I took the liberty of +calling a cab to take you gents up to the Grand Central. It's out front +now. But there's a big crowd of reporters and photographers and a lot of +other people waiting, and if I was you I'd slip out the back way--one of +my men will open the yard gate for you--and jump aboard the subway down +at Worth Street. Then you'll miss those fellows." + +"Thank you, Warden--very kind of you," said Mr. Trimm in that crisp, +businesslike way of his. He had been crisp and businesslike all his +life. He heard a door opening softly behind him, and when he turned to +look he saw the warden slipping out, furtively, in almost an embarrassed +fashion. + +"Well," said Meyers, "all ready?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Trimm, and he made as if to rise. + +"Wait one minute," said Meyers. + +He half turned his back on Mr. Trimm and fumbled at the side pocket of +his ill-hanging coat. Something inside of Mr. Trimm gave the least +little jump, and the question that had ticked away so busily all those +months began to buzz, buzz in his ears; but it was only a handkerchief +the man was getting out. Doubtless he was going to mop his face. + +He didn't mop his face, though. He unrolled the handkerchief slowly, as +if it contained something immensely fragile and valuable, and then, +thrusting it back in his pocket, he faced Mr. Trimm. He was carrying in +his hands a pair of handcuffs that hung open-jawed. The jaws had little +notches in them, like teeth that could bite. The question that had +ticked in Mr. Trimm's head was answered at last--in the sight of these +steel things with their notched jaws. + +Mr. Trimm stood up and, with a movement as near to hesitation as he had +ever been guilty of in his life, held out his hands, backs upward. + +"I guess you're new at this kind of thing," said Meyers, grinning. "This +here way--one at a time." + +He took hold of Mr. Trimm's right hand, turned it sideways and settled +one of the steel cuffs over the top of the wrist, flipping the notched +jaw up from beneath and pressing it in so that it locked automatically +with a brisk little click. Slipping the locked cuff back and forth on +Mr. Trimm's lower arm like a man adjusting a part of machinery, and then +bringing the left hand up to meet the right, he treated it the same way. +Then he stepped back. + +Mr. Trimm hadn't meant to protest. The word came unbidden. + +"This--this isn't necessary, is it?" he asked in a voice that was husky +and didn't seem to belong to him. + +"Yep," said Meyers. "Standin' orders is play no favorites and take no +chances. But you won't find them things uncomfortable. Lightest pair +there was in the office, and I fixed 'em plenty loose." + +For half a minute Mr. Trimm stood like a rooster hypnotized by a +chalkmark, his arms extended, his eyes set on his bonds. His hands had +fallen perhaps four inches apart, and in the space between his wrists a +little chain was stretched taut. In the mounting tumult that filled his +brain there sprang before Mr. Trimm's consciousness a phrase he had +heard or read somewhere, the title of a story or, perhaps, it was a +headline--The Grips of the Law. The Grips of the Law were upon Mr. +Trimm--he felt them now for the first time in these shiny wristlets and +this bit of chain that bound his wrists and filled his whole body with a +strange, sinking feeling that made him physically sick. A sudden sweat +beaded out on Mr. Trimm's face, turning it slick and wet. + +He had a handkerchief, a fine linen handkerchief with a hemstitched +border and a monogram on it, in the upper breast pocket of his buttoned +coat. He tried to reach it. His hands went up, twisting awkwardly like +crab claws. The fingers of both plucked out the handkerchief. Holding it +so, Mr. Trimm mopped the sweat away. The links of the handcuffs fell in +upon one another and lengthened out again at each movement, filling the +room with a smart little sound. + +He got the handkerchief stowed away with the same clumsiness. He raised +the manacled hands to his hat brim, gave it a downward pull that brought +it over his face and then, letting his short arms slide down upon his +plump stomach, he faced the man who had put the fetters upon him, +squaring his shoulders back. But it was hard, somehow, for him to square +his shoulders--perhaps because of his hands being drawn so closely +together. And his eyes would waver and fall upon his wrists. Mr. Trimm +had a feeling that the skin must be stretched very tight on his jawbones +and his forehead. + +"Isn't there some way to hide these--these things?" + +He began by blurting and ended by faltering it. His hands shuffled +together, one over, then under the other. + +"Here's a way," said Meyers. "This'll help." + +He bestirred himself, folding one of the chained hands upon the other, +tugging at the white linen cuffs and drawing the coat sleeves of his +prisoner down over the bonds as far as the chain would let them come. + +"There's the notion," he said. "Just do that-a-way and them bracelets +won't hardly show a-tall. Ready? Let's be movin', then." + +But handcuffs were never meant to be hidden. Merely a pair of steel +rings clamped to one's wrists and coupled together with a scrap of +chain, but they'll twist your arms and hamper the movements of your body +in a way to constantly catch the eye of the passer-by. When a man is +coming toward you, you can tell that he is handcuffed before you see the +cuffs. + +Mr. Trimm was never able to recall afterward exactly how he got out of +the Tombs. He had a confused memory of a gate that was swung open by +some one whom Mr. Trimm saw only from the feet to the waist; then he and +his companion were out on Lafayette Street, speeding south toward the +subway entrance at Worth Street, two blocks below, with the marshal's +hand cupped under Mr. Trimm's right elbow and Mr. Trimm's plump legs +almost trotting in their haste. For a moment it looked as if the +warden's well-meant artifice would serve them. + +But New York reporters are up to the tricks of people who want to evade +them. At the sight of them a sentry reporter on the corner shouted a +warning which was instantly caught up and passed on by another picket +stationed half-way down the block; and around the wall of the Tombs came +pelting a flying mob of newspaper photographers and reporters, with a +choice rabble behind them. Foot passengers took up the chase, not +knowing what it was about, but sensing a free show. Truckmen halted +their teams, jumped down from their wagon seats and joined in. A +man-chase is one of the pleasantest outdoor sports that a big city like +New York can offer its people. + +Fairly running now, the manacled banker and the deputy marshal shot down +the winding steps into the subway a good ten yards ahead of the foremost +pursuers. But there was one delay, while Meyers skirmished with his free +hand in his trousers' pocket for a dime for the tickets, and another +before a northbound local rolled into the station. Shouted at, jeered +at, shoved this way and that, panting in gulping breaths, for he was +stout by nature and staled by lack of exercise, Mr. Trimm, with Meyers +clutching him by the arm, was fairly shot aboard one of the cars, at the +apex of a human wedge. The astonished guard sensed the situation as the +scrooging, shoving, noisy wave rolled across the platform toward the +doors which he had opened and, thrusting the officer and his prisoner +into the narrow platform space behind him, he tried to form with his +body a barrier against those who came jamming in. + +It didn't do any good. He was brushed away, protesting and blustering. +The excitement spread through the train, and men, and even women, left +their seats, overflowing the aisles. + +There is no crueler thing than a city crowd, all eyes and morbid +curiosity. But Mr. Trimm didn't see the staring eyes on that ride to the +Grand Central. What he saw was many shifting feet and a hedge of legs +shutting him in closely--those and the things on his wrists. What the +eyes of the crowd saw was a small, stout man who, for all his bulk, +seemed to have dried up inside his clothes so that they bagged on him +some places and bulged others, with his head tucked on his chest, his +hat over his face and his fingers straining to hold his coat sleeves +down over a pair of steel bracelets. + +Mr. Trimm gave mental thanks to a Deity whose existence he thought he +had forgotten when the gate of the train-shed clanged behind him, +shutting out the mob that had come with them all the way. Cameras had +been shoved in his face like gun muzzles, reporters had scuttled +alongside him, dodging under Meyers' fending arm to shout questions in +his ears. He had neither spoken nor looked at them. The sweat still ran +down his face, so that when finally he raised his head in the +comparative quiet of the train-shed his skin was a curious gray under +the jail paleness like the color of wet wood ashes. + +"My lawyer promised to arrange for a compartment--for some private place +on the train," he said to Meyers. "The conductor ought to know." + +They were the first words he had uttered since he left the Tombs. Meyers +spoke to a jaunty Pullman conductor who stood alongside the car where +they had halted. + +"No such reservation," said the conductor, running through his sheaf of +slips, with his eyes shifting from Mr. Trimm's face to Mr. Trimm's hands +and back again, as though he couldn't decide which was the more +interesting part of him; "must be some mistake. Or else it was for some +other train. Too late to change now--we pull out in three minutes." + +"I reckon we better git on the smoker," said Meyers, "if there's room +there." + +Mr. Trimm was steered back again the length of the train through a +double row of pop-eyed porters and staring trainmen. At the steps where +they stopped the instinct to stretch out one hand and swing himself up +by the rail operated automatically and his wrists got a nasty twist. +Meyers and a brakeman practically lifted him up the steps and Meyers +headed him into a car that was hazy with blue tobacco smoke. He was +confused in his gait, almost as if his lower limbs had been fettered, +too. + +The car was full of shirt-sleeved men who stood up, craning their necks +and stumbling over each other in their desire to see him. These men came +out into the aisle, so that Meyers had to shove through them. + +"This here'll do as well as any, I guess," said Meyers. He drew Mr. +Trimm past him into the seat nearer the window and sat down alongside +him on the side next the aisle, settling himself on the stuffy plush +seat and breathing deeply, like a man who had got through the hardest +part of a not easy job. + +"Smoke?" he asked. + +Mr. Trimm shook his head without raising it. + +"Them cuffs feel plenty easy?" was the deputy's next question. He lifted +Mr. Trimm's hands as casually as if they had been his hands and not Mr. +Trimm's, and looked at them. + +"Seem to be all right," he said as he let them fall back. "Don't pinch +none, I reckon?" There was no answer. + +The deputy tugged a minute at his mustache, searching his arid mind. An +idea came to him. He drew a newspaper from his pocket, opened it out +flat and spread it over Mr. Trimm's lap so that it covered the chained +wrists. Almost instantly the train was in motion, moving through the +yards. + + * * * * * + +"Be there in two hours more," volunteered Meyers. It was late afternoon. +They were sliding through woodlands with occasional openings which +showed meadows melting into wide, flat lands. + +"Want a drink?" said the deputy, next. "No? Well, I guess I'll have a +drop myself. Travelin' fills a feller's throat full of dust." He got up, +lurching to the motion of the flying train, and started forward to the +water cooler behind the car door. He had gone perhaps two-thirds of the +way when Mr. Trimm felt a queer, grinding sensation beneath his feet; it +was exactly as though the train were trying to go forward and back at +the same time. Almost slowly, it seemed to him, the forward end of the +car slued out of its straight course, at the same time tilting up. There +was a grinding, roaring, grating sound, and before Mr. Trimm's eyes +Meyers vanished, tumbling forward out of sight as the car floor buckled +under his feet. Then, as everything--the train, the earth, the sky--all +fused together in a great spatter of white and black, Mr. Trimm, plucked +from his seat as though a giant hand had him by the collar, shot forward +through the air over the seatbacks, his chained hands aloft, clutching +wildly. He rolled out of a ragged opening where the smoker had broken in +two, flopped gently on the sloping side of the right-of-way and slid +easily to the bottom, where he lay quiet and still on his back in a bed +of weeds and wild grass, staring straight up. + +How many minutes he lay there Mr. Trimm didn't know. It may have been +the shrieks of the victims or the glare from the fire that brought him +out of the daze. He wriggled his body to a sitting posture, got on his +feet, holding his head between his coupled hands, and gazed full-face +into the crowning railroad horror of the year. + +There were numbers of the passengers who had escaped serious hurt, but +for the most part these persons seemed to have gone daft from terror and +shock. Some were running aimlessly up and down and some, a few, were +pecking feebly with improvised tools at the wreck, an indescribable +jumble of ruin, from which there issued cries of mortal agony, and from +which, at a point where two locomotives were lying on their sides, +jammed together like fighting bucks that had died with locked horns, a +tall flame already rippled and spread, sending up a pillar of black +smoke that rose straight, poisoning the clear blue of the sky. Nobody +paid any attention to Mr. Trimm as he stood swaying upon his feet. There +wasn't a scratch on him. His clothes were hardly rumpled, his hat was +still on his head. He stood a minute and then, moved by a sudden +impulse, he turned round and went running straight away from the +railroad at the best speed his pudgy legs could accomplish, with his +arms pumping up and down in front of him and his fingers interlaced. It +was a grotesque gait, almost like a rabbit hopping on its hindlegs. + +Instantly, almost, the friendly woods growing down to the edge of the +fill swallowed him up. He dodged and doubled back and forth among the +tree trunks, his small, patent-leathered feet skipping nimbly over the +irregular turf, until he stopped for lack of wind in his lungs to carry +him another rod. When he had got his breath back Mr. Trimm leaned +against a tree and bent his head this way and that, listening. No sound +came to his ears except the sleepy calls of birds. As well as Mr. Trimm +might judge he had come far into the depths of a considerable woodland. +Already the shadows under the low limbs were growing thick and confused +as the hurried twilight of early September came on. + +Mr. Trimm sat down on a natural cushion of thick green moss between two +roots of an oak. The place was clean and soft and sweet-scented. For +some little time he sat there motionless, in a sort of mental haze. Then +his round body slowly slid down flat upon the moss, his head lolled to +one side and, the reaction having come, Mr. Trimm's limbs all relaxed +and he went to sleep straightway. + +After a while, when the woods were black and still, the half-grown moon +came up and, sifting through a chink in the canopy of leaves above, +shone down full on Mr. Trimm as he lay snoring gently with his mouth +open, and his hands rising and falling on his breast. The moonlight +struck upon the Little Giant handcuffs, making them look like +quicksilver. + +Toward daylight it turned off sharp and cool. The dogwoods which had +been a solid color at nightfall now showed pink in one light and green +in another, like changeable silk, as the first level rays of the sun +came up over the rim of the earth and made long, golden lanes between +the tree trunks. Mr. Trimm opened his eyes slowly, hardly sensing for +the first moment or two how he came to be lying under a canopy of +leaves, and gaped, seeking to stretch his arms. At that he remembered +everything; he haunched his shoulders against the tree roots and +wriggled himself up to a sitting position where he stayed for a while, +letting his mind run over the sequence of events that had brought him +where he was and taking inventory of the situation. + +Of escape he had no thought. The hue and cry must be out for him before +now; doubtless men were already searching for him. It would be better +for him to walk in and surrender than to be taken in the woods like an +animal escaped from a traveling menagerie. But the mere thought of +enduring again what he had already gone through--the thought of being +tagged by crowds and stared at, with his fetters on--filled him with a +nausea. Nothing that the Federal penitentiary might hold in store for +him could equal the black, blind shamefulness of yesterday; he knew +that. The thought of the new ignominy that faced him made Mr. Trimm +desperate. He had a desire to burrow into the thicket yonder and hide +his face and his chained hands. + +But perhaps he could get the handcuffs off and so go to meet his captors +in some manner of dignity. Strange that the idea hadn't occurred to him +before! It seemed to Mr. Trimm that he desired to get his two hands +apart more than he had ever desired anything in his whole life before. + +The hands had begun naturally to adjust themselves to their enforced +companionship, and it wasn't such a very hard matter, though it cost him +some painful wrenches and much twisting of the fingers, for Mr. Trimm to +get his coat unbuttoned and his eyeglasses in their small leather case +out of his upper waistcoat pocket. With the glasses on his nose he +subjected his bonds to a critical examination. Each rounded steel band +ran unbroken except for the smooth, almost jointless hinge and the small +lock which sat perched on the back of the wrist in a little rounded +excrescence like a steel wart. In the flat center of each lock was a +small keyhole and alongside of it a notched nub, the nub being sunk in a +minute depression. On the inner side, underneath, the cuffs slid into +themselves--two notches on each showing where the jaws might be +tightened to fit a smaller hand than his--and right over the large blue +veins in the middle of the wrists were swivel links, shackle-bolted to +the cuffs and connected by a flat, slightly larger middle link, giving +the hands a palm-to-palm play of not more than four or five inches. The +cuffs did not hurt--even after so many hours there was no actual +discomfort from them and the flesh beneath them was hardly reddened. + +But it didn't take Mr. Trimm long to find out that they were not to be +got off. He tugged and pulled, trying with his fingers for a purchase. +All he did was to chafe his skin and make his wrists throb with pain. +The cuffs would go forward just so far, then the little humps of bone +above the hands would catch and hold them. + +Mr. Trimm was not a man to waste time in the pursuit of the obviously +hopeless. Presently he stood up, shook himself and started off at a fair +gait through the woods. The sun was up now and the turf was all dappled +with lights and shadows, and about him much small, furtive wild life was +stirring. He stepped along briskly, a strange figure for that green +solitude, with his correct city garb and the glint of the steel at his +sleeve ends. + +Presently he heard the long-drawn, quavering, banshee wail of a +locomotive. The sound came from almost behind him, in an opposite +direction from where he supposed the track to be. So he turned around +and went back the other way. He crossed a half-dried-up runlet and +climbed a small hill, neither of which he remembered having met in his +night from the wreck, and in a little while he came out upon the +railroad. To the north a little distance the rails ran round a curve. To +the south, where the diminishing rails running through the unbroken +woodland met in a long, shiny V, he could see a big smoke smudge against +the horizon. This smoke Mr. Trimm knew must come from the wreck--which +was still burning, evidently. As nearly as he could judge he had come +out of cover at least two miles above it. After a moment's consideration +he decided to go south toward the wreck. Soon he could distinguish small +dots like ants moving in and out about the black spot, and he knew these +dots must be men. + +A whining, whirring sound came along the rails to him from behind. He +faced about just as a handcar shot out around the curve from the north, +moving with amazing rapidity under the strokes of four men at the pumps. +Other men, laborers to judge by their blue overalls, were sitting on the +edges of the car with their feet dangling. For the second time within +twelve hours impulse ruled Mr. Trimm, who wasn't given to impulses +normally. He made a jump off the right-of-way, and as the handcar +flashed by he watched its flight from the covert of a weed tangle. + +But even as the handcar was passing him Mr. Trimm regretted his +hastiness. He must surrender himself sooner or later; why not to these +overalled laborers, since it was a thing that had to be done? He slid +out of hiding and came trotting back to the tracks. Already the handcar +was a hundred yards away, flitting into distance like some big, +wonderfully fast bug, the figures of the men at the pumps rising and +falling with a walking-beam regularity. As he stood watching them fade +away and minded to try hailing them, yet still hesitating against his +judgment, Mr. Trimm saw something white drop from the hands of one of +the blue-clad figures on the handcar, unfold into a newspaper and come +fluttering back along the tracks toward him. Just as he, starting +doggedly ahead, met it, the little ground breeze that had carried it +along died out and the paper dropped and flattened right in front of +him. The front page was uppermost and he knew it must be of that +morning's issue, for across the column tops ran the flaring headline: +"Twenty Dead in Frightful Collision." + +Squatting on the cindered track, Mr. Trimm patted the crumpled sheet +flat with his hands. His eyes dropped from the first of the glaring +captions to the second, to the next--and then his heart gave a great +bound inside of him and, clutching up the newspaper to his breast, he +bounded off the tracks back into another thicket and huddled there with +the paper spread on the earth in front of him, reading by gulps while +the chain that linked wrist to wrist tinkled to the tremors running +through him. What he had seen first, in staring black-face type, was his +own name leading the list of known dead, and what he saw now, broken up +into choppy paragraphs and done in the nervous English of a trained +reporter throwing a great news story together to catch an edition, but +telling a clear enough story nevertheless, was a narrative in which his +name recurred again and again. The body of the United States deputy +marshal, Meyers, frightfully crushed, had been taken from the wreckage +of the smoker--so the double-leaded story ran--and near to Meyers +another body, with features burned beyond recognition, yet still +retaining certain distinguishing marks of measurement and contour, had +been found and identified as that of Hobart W. Trimm, the convicted +banker. The bodies of these two, with eighteen other mangled dead, had +been removed to a town called Westfield, from which town of Westfield +the account of the disaster had been telegraphed to the New York paper. +In another column farther along was more about Banker Trimm; facts about +his soiled, selfish, greedy, successful life, his great fortune, his +trial, and a statement that, lacking any close kin to claim his body, +his lawyers had been notified. + +Mr. Trimm read the account through to the end, and as he read the sense +of dominant, masterful self-control came back to him in waves. He got +up, taking the paper with him, and went back into the deeper woods, +moving warily and watchfully. As he went his mind, trained to take hold +of problems and wring the essence out of them, was busy. Of the charred, +grisly thing in the improvised morgue at Westfield, wherever that might +be, Mr. Trimm took no heed nor wasted any pity. All his life he had used +live men to work his will, with no thought of what might come to them +afterward. The living had served him, why not the dead? + +He had other things to think of than this dead proxy of his. He was as +good as free! There would be no hunt for him now; no alarm out, no +posses combing every scrap of cover for a famous criminal turned +fugitive. He had only to lie quiet a few days, somewhere, then get in +secret touch with Walling. Walling would do anything for money. And he +had the money--four millions and more, cannily saved from the crash that +had ruined so many others. + +He would alter his personal appearance, change his name--he thought of +Duvall, which was his mother's name--and with Walling's aid he would get +out of the country and into some other country where a man might live +like a prince on four millions or the fractional part of it. He thought +of South America, of South Africa, of a private yacht swinging through +the little frequented islands of the South Seas. All that the law had +tried to take from him would be given back. Walling would work out the +details of the escape--and make it safe and sure--trust Walling for +those things. On one side was the prison, with its promise of twelve +grinding years sliced out of the very heart of his life; on the other, +freedom, ease, security, even power. Through Mr. Trimm's mind tumbled +thoughts of concessions, enterprises, privileges--the back corners of +the globe were full of possibilities for the right man. And between this +prospect and Mr. Trimm there stood nothing in the way, nothing but---- + +Mr. Trimm's eyes fell upon his bound hands. Snug-fitting, shiny steel +bands irked his wrists. The Grips of the Law were still upon him. + +But only in a way of speaking. It was preposterous, unbelievable, +altogether out of the question that a man with four millions salted down +and stored away, a man who all his life had been used to grappling with +the big things and wrestling them down into submission, a man whose luck +had come to be a byword--and had not it held good even in this last +emergency?--would be balked by puny scraps of forged steel and a +trumpery lock or two. Why, these cuffs were no thicker than the gold +bands that Mr. Trimm had seen on the arms of overdressed women at the +opera. The chain that joined them was no larger and, probably, no +stronger than the chains which Mr. Trimm's chauffeur wrapped around the +tires of the touring car in winter to keep the wheels from skidding on +the slush. There would be a way, surely, for Mr. Trimm to free himself +from these things. There must be--that was all there was to it. + +Mr. Trimm looked himself over. His clothes were not badly rumpled; his +patent-leather boots were scarcely scratched. Without the handcuffs he +could pass unnoticed anywhere. By night then he must be free of them and +on his way to some small inland city, to stay quiet there until the +guarded telegram that he would send in cipher had reached Walling. There +in the woods by himself Mr. Trimm no longer felt the ignominy of his +bonds; he felt only the temporary embarrassment of them and the need of +added precaution until he should have mastered them. + +He was once more the unemotional man of affairs who had stood Wall +Street on its esteemed head and caught the golden streams that trickled +from its pockets. First making sure that he was in a well-screened +covert of the woods he set about exploring all his pockets. The coat +pockets were comparatively easy, now that he had got used to using two +hands where one had always served, but it cost him a lot of twisting of +his body and some pain to his mistreated wrist bones to bring forth the +contents of his trousers' pockets. The chain kinked time and again as he +groped with the undermost hand for the openings; his dumpy, pudgy form +writhed grotesquely. But finally he finished. The search produced four +cigars somewhat crumpled and frayed; some matches in a gun-metal case, a +silver cigar cutter, two five-dollar bills, a handful of silver chicken +feed, the leather case of the eyeglasses, a couple of quill toothpicks, +a gold watch with a dangling fob, a notebook and some papers. Mr. Trimm +ranged these things in a neat row upon a log, like a watchmaker setting +out his kit, and took swift inventory of them. Some he eliminated from +his design, stowing them back in the pockets easiest to reach. He kept +for present employment the match safe, the cigar cutter and the watch. + +This place where he had halted would suit his present purpose well, he +decided. It was where an uprooted tree, fallen across an incurving bank, +made a snug little recess that was closed in on three sides. Spreading +the newspaper on the turf to save his knees from soiling, he knelt and +set to his task. For the time he felt neither hunger nor thirst. He had +found out during his earlier experiments that the nails of his little +fingers, which were trimmed to a point, could invade the keyholes in the +little steel warts on the backs of his wrists and touch the locks. The +mechanism had even twitched a little bit under the tickle of the nail +ends. So, having already smashed the gun-metal match safe under his +heel, Mr. Trimm selected a slender-pointed bit from among its fragments +and got to work, the left hand drawn up under the right, the fingers of +the right busy with the lock of the left, the chain tightening and +slackening with subdued clinking sounds at each movement. + +Mr. Trimm didn't know much about picking a lock. He had got his money by +a higher form of burglary that did not require a knowledge of lock +picking. Nor as a boy had he been one to play at mechanics. He had let +other boys make the toy fluttermills and the wooden traps and the like, +and then he had traded for them. He was sorry now that he hadn't given +more heed to the mechanical side of things when he was growing up. + +He worked with a deliberate slowness, steadily. Nevertheless, it was hot +work. The sun rose over the bank and shone on him through the limbs of +the uprooted tree. His hat was on the ground alongside of him. The sweat +ran down his face, streaking it and wilting his collar flat. The scrap +of gun metal kept slipping out of his wet fingers. Down would go the +chained hands to scrabble in the grass for it, and then the picking +would go on again. This happened a good many times. Birds, nervous with +the spirit that presages the fall migration, flew back and forth along +the creek, almost grazing Mr. Trimm sometimes. A rain crow wove a brown +thread in the green warp of the bushes above his head. A chattering red +squirrel sat up on a tree limb to scold him. At intervals, distantly, +came the cough of laboring trains, showing that the track must have been +cleared. There were times when Mr. Trimm thought he felt the lock +giving. These times he would work harder. + + * * * * * + +Late in the afternoon Mr. Trimm lay back against the bank, panting. His +face was splotched with red, and the little hollows at the sides of his +forehead pulsed rapidly up and down like the bellies of scared tree +frogs. The bent outer case of the watch littered a bare patch on the +log; its mainspring had gone the way of the fragments of the gun-metal +match safe which were lying all about, each a worn-down, twisted wisp of +metal. The spring of the eyeglasses had been confiscated long ago and +the broken crystals powdered the earth where Mr. Trimm's toes had +scraped a smooth patch. The nails of the two little fingers were worn to +the quick and splintered down into the raw flesh. There were countless +tiny scratches and mars on the locks of the handcuffs, and the steel +wristbands were dulled with blood smears and pale-red tarnishes of new +rust; but otherwise they were as stanch and strong a pair of Bean's +Latest Model Little Giant handcuffs as you'd find in any hardware store +anywhere. + +The devilish, stupid malignity of the damned things! With an acid oath +Mr. Trimm raised his hands and brought them down on the log violently. +There was a double click and the bonds tightened painfully, pressing the +chafed red skin white. Mr. Trimm snatched up his hands close to his +near-sighted eyes and looked. One of the little notches on the under +side of each cuff had disappeared. It was as if they were living things +that had turned and bitten him for the blow he gave them. + + * * * * * + +From the time the sun went down there was a tingle of frost in the air. +Mr. Trimm didn't sleep much. Under the squeeze of the tightened fetters +his wrists throbbed steadily and racking cramps ran through his arms. +His stomach felt as though it were tied into knots. The water that he +drank from the branch only made his hunger sickness worse. His +undergarments, that had been wet with perspiration, clung to him +clammily. His middle-aged, tenderly-cared-for body called through every +pore for clean linen and soap and water and rest, as his empty insides +called for food. + +After a while he became so chilled that the demand for warmth conquered +his instinct for caution. He felt about him in the darkness, gathering +scraps of dead wood, and, after breaking several of the matches that had +been in the gun-metal match safe, he managed to strike one and with its +tiny flame started a fire. He huddled almost over the fire, coughing +when the smoke blew into his face and twisting and pulling at his arms +in an effort to get relief from the everlasting cramps. It seemed to him +that if he could only get an inch or two more of play for his hands he +would be ever so much more comfortable. But he couldn't, of course. + +He dozed, finally, sitting crosslegged with his head sunk between his +hunched shoulders. A pain in a new place woke him. The fire had burned +almost through the thin sole of his right shoe, and as he scrambled to +his feet and stamped, the clap of the hot leather flat against his +blistered foot almost made him cry out. + + * * * * * + +Soon after sunrise a boy came riding a horse down a faintly traced +footpath along the creek, driving a cow with a bell on her neck ahead of +him. Mr. Trimm's ears caught the sound of the clanking bell before +either the cow or her herder was in sight, and he limped away, running, +skulking through the thick cover. A pendent loop of a wild grapevine, +swinging low, caught his hat and flipped it off his head; but Mr. Trimm, +imagining pursuit, did not stop to pick it up and went on bareheaded +until he had to stop from exhaustion. He saw some dark-red berries on a +shrub upon which he had trod, and, stooping, he plucked some of them +with his two hands and put three or four in his mouth experimentally. +Warned instantly by the acrid, burning taste, he spat the crushed +berries out and went on doggedly, following, according to his best +judgment, a course parallel to the railroad. It was characteristic of +him, a city-raised man, that he took no heed of distances nor of the +distinguishing marks of the timber. + +Behind a log at the edge of a small clearing in the woods he halted some +little time, watching and listening. The clearing had grown up in sumacs +and weeds and small saplings and it seemed deserted; certainly it was +still. Near the center of it rose the sagging roof of what had been a +shack or a shed of some sort. Stooping cautiously, to keep his bare head +below the tops of the sumacs, Mr. Trimm made for the ruined shanty and +gained it safely. In the midst of the rotted, punky logs that had once +formed the walls he began scraping with his feet. Presently he uncovered +something. It was a broken-off harrow tooth, scaled like a long, red +fish with the crusted rust of years. + +Mr. Trimm rested the lower rims of his handcuffs on the edge of an old, +broken watering trough, worked the pointed end of the rust-crusted +harrow tooth into the flat middle link of the chain as far as it would +go, and then with one hand on top of the other he pressed downward with +all his might. The pain in his wrists made him stop this at once. The +link had not sprung or given in the least, but the twisting pressure +had almost broken his wrist bones. He let the harrow tooth fall, knowing +that it would never serve as a lever to free him--which, indeed, he had +known all along--and sat on the side of the trough, rubbing his wrists +and thinking. + +He had another idea. It came into his mind as a vague suggestion that +fire had certain effects upon certain metals. He kindled a fire of bits +of the rotted wood, and when the flames ran together and rose slender +and straight in a single red thread he thrust the chain into it, holding +his hands as far apart as possible in the attitude of a player about to +catch a bounced ball. But immediately the pain of that grew unendurable +too, and he leaped back, jerking his hands away. He had succeeded only +in blackening the steel and putting a big water blister on one of his +wrists right where the shackle bolt would press upon it. + +Where he huddled down in the shelter of one of the fallen walls he +noticed, presently, a strand of rusted fence wire still held to +half-tottering posts by a pair of blackened staples; it was part of a +pen that had been used once for chickens or swine. Mr. Trimm tried the +wire with his fingers. It was firm and springy. Rocking and groaning +with the pain of it, he nevertheless began sliding the chain back and +forth, back and forth along the strand of wire. + +Eventually the wire, weakened by age, snapped in two. A tiny shined +spot, hardly deep enough to be called a nick, in its tarnished, smudged +surface was all the mark that the chain showed. + +Staggering a little and putting his feet down unsteadily, Mr. Trimm left +the clearing, heading as well as he could tell eastward, away from the +railroad. After a mile or two he came to a dusty wood road winding +downhill. + +To the north of the clearing where Mr. Trimm had halted were a farm and +a group of farm buildings. To the southward a mile or so was a cluster +of dwellings set in the midst of more farm lands, with a shop or two and +a small white church with a green spire in the center. Along a road that +ran northward from the hamlet to the solitary farm a ten-year-old boy +came, carrying a covered tin pail. A young gray squirrel flirted across +the wagon ruts ahead of him and darted up a chestnut sapling. The boy +put the pail down at the side of the road and began looking for a stone +to throw at the squirrel. + +Mr. Trimm slid out from behind a tree. A hemstitched handkerchief, +grimed and stained, was loosely twisted around his wrists, partly hiding +the handcuffs. He moved along with a queer, sliding gait, keeping as +much of his body as he could turned from the youngster. The ears of the +little chap caught the faint scuffle of feet and he spun around on his +bare heel. + +"My boy, would you----" Mr. Trimm began. + +The boy's round eyes widened at the apparition that was sidling toward +him in so strange a fashion, and then, taking fright, he dodged past Mr. +Trimm and ran back the way he had come, as fast as his slim brown legs +could take him. In half a minute he was out of sight round a bend. + +Had the boy looked back he would have seen a still more curious +spectacle than the one that had frightened him. He would have seen a man +worth four million dollars down on his knees in the yellow dust, pawing +with chained hands at the tight-fitting lid of the tin pail, and then, +when he had got the lid off, drinking the fresh, warm milk which the +pail held with great, choking gulps, uttering little mewing, animal +sounds as he drank, while the white, creamy milk ran over his chin and +splashed down his breast in little, spurting streams. + +But the boy didn't look back. He ran all the way home and told his +mother he had seen a wild man on the road to the village; and later, +when his father came in from the fields, he was soundly thrashed for +letting the sight of a tramp make him lose a good tin bucket and half a +gallon of milk worth six cents a quart. + + * * * * * + +The rich, fresh milk put life into Mr. Trimm. He rested the better for +it during the early part of that night in a haw thicket. Only the +sharp, darting pains in his wrists kept rousing him to temporary +wakefulness. In one of those intervals of waking the plan that had been +sketchily forming in his mind from the time he had quit the clearing in +the woods took on a definite, fixed shape. But how was he with safety to +get the sort of aid he needed, and where? + +Canvassing tentative plans in his head, he dozed off again. + + * * * * * + +On a smooth patch of turf behind the blacksmith shop three yokels were +languidly pitching horseshoes--"quaits" they called them--at a stake +driven in the earth. Just beyond, the woods shredded out into a long, +yellow and green peninsula which stretched up almost to the back door of +the smithy, so that late of afternoons the slanting shadows of the +near-most trees fell on its roof of warped shingles. At the extreme end +of this point of woods Mr. Trimm was squatted behind a big boulder, +squinting warily through a thick-fringed curtain of ripened goldenrod +tops and sumacs, heavy-headed with their dark-red tapers. He had been +there more than an hour, cautiously waiting his chance to hail the +blacksmith, whose figure he could make out in the smoky interior of his +shop, passing back and forth in front of a smudgy forge fire and +rattling metal against metal in intermittent fits of professional +activity. + +From where Mr. Trimm watched to where the horseshoe-pitching game went +on was not more than sixty feet. He could hear what the players said and +even see the little puffs of dust rise when one of them clapped his +hands together after a pitch. He judged by the signs of slackening +interest that they would be stopping soon and, he hoped, going clear +away. + +But the smith loafed out of his shop and, after an exchange of bucolic +banter with the three of them, he took a hand in their game himself. He +wore no coat or waistcoat and, as he poised a horseshoe for his first +cast at the stake, Mr. Trimm saw, pinned flat against the broad strap of +his suspenders, a shiny, silvery-looking disk. Having pitched the shoe, +the smith moved over into the shade, so that he almost touched the clump +of undergrowth that half buried Mr. Trimm's protecting boulder. The +near-sighted eyes of the fugitive banker could make out then what the +flat, silvery disk was, and Mr. Trimm cowered low in his covert behind +the rock, holding his hands down between his knees, fearful that a gleam +from his burnished wristlets might strike through the screen of weed +growth and catch the inquiring eye of the smith. So he stayed, not +daring to move, until a dinner horn sounded somewhere in the cluster of +cottages beyond, and the smith, closing the doors of his shop, went away +with the three yokels. + +Then Mr. Trimm, stooping low, stole back into the deep woods again. In +his extremity he was ready to risk making a bid for the hire of a +blacksmith's aid to rid himself of his bonds, but not a blacksmith who +wore a deputy sheriff's badge pinned to his suspenders. + + * * * * * + +He caught himself scraping his wrists up and down again against the +rough, scrofulous trunk of a shellbark hickory. The irritation was +comforting to the swollen skin. The cuffs, which kept catching on the +bark and snagging small fragments of it loose, seemed to Mr. Trimm to +have been a part and parcel of him for a long time--almost as long a +time as he could remember. But the hands which they clasped so close +seemed like the hands of somebody else. There was a numbness about them +that made them feel as though they were a stranger's hands which never +had belonged to him. As he looked at them with a sort of vague curiosity +they seemed to swell and grow, these two strange, fettered hands, until +they measured yards across, while the steel bands shrunk to the thinness +of piano wire, cutting deeper and deeper into the flesh. Then the hands +in turn began to shrink down and the cuffs to grow up into great, thick +things as cumbersome as the couplings of a freight car. A voice that Mr. +Trimm dimly recognized as his own was saying something about four +million dollars over and over again. + +Mr. Trimm roused up and shook his head angrily to clear it. He rubbed +his eyes free of the clouding delusion. It wouldn't do for him to be +getting light-headed. + + * * * * * + +On a flat, shelving bluff, forty feet above a cut through which the +railroad ran at a point about five miles north of where the collision +had occurred, a tramp was busy, just before sundown, cooking something +in an old washboiler that perched precariously on a fire of wood coals. +This tramp was tall and spindle-legged, with reddish hair and a pale, +beardless, freckled face with no chin to it and not much forehead, so +that it ran out to a peak like the profile of some featherless, +unpleasant sort of fowl. The skirts of an old, ragged overcoat dangled +grotesquely about his spare shanks. + +Desperate as his plight had become, Mr. Trimm felt the old sick shame at +the prospect of exposing himself to this knavish-looking vagabond whose +help he meant to buy with a bribe. It was the sight of a dainty wisp of +smoke from the wood fire curling upward through the cloudy, damp air +that had brought him limping cautiously across the right-of-way, to +climb the rocky shelf along the cut; but now he hesitated, shielded in +the shadows twenty yards away. It was a whiff of something savory in the +washboiler, borne to him on the still air and almost making him cry out +with eagerness, that drew him forth finally. At the sound of the +halting footsteps the tramp stopped stirring the mess in the washboiler +and glanced up apprehensively. As he took in the figure of the newcomer +his eyes narrowed and his pasty, nasty face spread in a grin of +comprehension. + +"Well, well, well," he said, leering offensively, "welcome to our city, +little stranger." + +Mr. Trimm came nearer, dragging his feet, for they were almost out of +the wrecks of his patent-leather shoes. His gaze shifted from the +tramp's face to the stuff on the fire, his nostrils wrinkling. Then +slowly: "I'm in trouble," he said, and held out his hands. + +"Wot I'd call a mild way o' puttin' it," said the tramp coolly. "That +purticular kind o' joolry ain't gen'lly wore for pleasure." + +His eyes took on a nervous squint and roved past Mr. Trimm's stooped +figure down the slope of the hillock. + +"Say, pal, how fur ahead are you of yore keeper?" he demanded, his +manner changing. + +"There is no one after me--no one that I know of," explained Mr. Trimm. +"I am quite alone--I am certain of it." + +"Sure there ain't nobody lookin' fur you?" the other persisted +suspiciously. + +"I tell you I am all alone," protested Mr. Trimm. "I want your help in +getting these--these things off and sending a message to a friend. +You'll be well paid, very well paid. I can pay you more money than you +ever had in your life, probably, for your help. I can promise----" + +He broke off, for the tramp, as if reassured by his words, had stooped +again to his cooking and was stirring the bubbling contents of the +washboiler with a peeled stick. The smell of the stew, rising strongly, +filled Mr. Trimm with such a sharp and an aching hunger that he could +not speak for a moment. He mastered himself, but the effort left him +shaking and gulping. + +"Go on, then, an' tell us somethin' about yourself," said the freckled +man. "Wot brings you roamin' round this here railroad cut with them +bracelets on?" + +"I was in the wreck," obeyed Mr. Trimm. "The man with me--the +officer--was killed. I wasn't hurt and I got away into these woods. But +they think I'm dead too--my name was among the list of dead." + +The other's peaky face lengthened in astonishment. + +"Why, say," he began, "I read all about that there wreck--seen the list +myself--say, you can't be Trimm, the New York banker? Yes, you are! Wot +a streak of luck! Lemme look at you! Trimm, the swell financeer, +sportin' 'round with the darbies on him all nice an' snug an' reg'lar! +Mister Trimm--well, if this ain't rich!" + +"My name is Trimm," said the starving banker miserably. "I've been +wandering about here a great many hours--several days, I think it must +be--and I need rest and food very much indeed. I don't--don't feel very +well," he added, his voice trailing off. + +At this his self-control gave way again and he began to quake violently +as if with an ague. The smell of the cooking overcame him. + +"You don't look so well an' that's a fact, Trimm," sneered the tramp, +resuming his malicious, mocking air. "But set down an' make yourself at +home, an' after a while, when this is done, we'll have a bite +together--you an' me. It'll be a reg'lar tea party fur jest us two." + +He broke off to chuckle. His mirth made him appear even more repulsive +than before. + +"But looky here, you wus sayin' somethin' about money," he said +suddenly. "Le's take a look at all this here money." + +He came over to him and went through Mr. Trimm's pockets. Mr. Trimm said +nothing and stood quietly, making no resistance. The tramp finished a +workmanlike search of the banker's pockets. He looked at the result as +it lay in his grimy palm--a moist little wad of bills and some +chicken-feed change--and spat disgustedly with a nasty oath. + +"Well, Trimm," he said, "fur a Wall Street guy seems to me you travel +purty light. About how much did you think you'd get done fur all this +pile of wealth?" + +"You will be well paid," said Mr. Trimm, arguing hard; "my friend will +see to that. What I want you to do is to take the money you have there +in your hand and buy a cold chisel or a file--any tools that will cut +these things off me. And then you will send a telegram to a certain +gentleman in New York. And let me stay with you until we get an +answer--until he comes here. He will pay you well; I promise it." + +He halted, his eyes and his mind again on the bubbling stuff in the +rusted washboiler. The freckled vagrant studied him through his +red-lidded eyes, kicking some loose embers back into the fire with his +toe. + +"I've heard a lot about you one way an' another, Trimm," he said. +"'Tain't as if you wuz some pore down-an'-out devil tryin' to beat the +cops out of doin' his bit in stir. You're the way-up, high-an'-mighty +kind of crook. An' from wot I've read an' heard about you, you never +toted fair with nobody yet. There wuz that young feller, wot's his +name?--the cashier--him that wuz tried with you. He went along with you +in yore games an' done yore work fur you an' you let him go over the +road to the same place you're tryin' to dodge now. Besides," he added +cunningly, "you come here talkin' mighty big about money, yet I notice +you ain't carryin' much of it in yore clothes. All I've had to go by is +yore word. An' yore word ain't worth much, by all accounts." + +"I tell you, man, that you'll profit richly," burst out Mr. Trimm, the +words falling over each other in his new panic. "You must help me; I've +endured too much--I've gone through too much to give up now." He pleaded +fast, his hands shaking in a quiver of fear and eagerness as he +stretched them out in entreaty and his linked chain shaking with them. +Promises, pledges, commands, orders, arguments poured from him. His +tormentor checked him with a gesture. + +"You're wot I'd call a bird in the hand," he chuckled, hugging his slack +frame, "an' it ain't fur you to be givin' orders--it's fur me. An', +anyway, I guess we ain't a-goin' to be able to make a trade--leastwise +not on yore terms. But we'll do business all right, all right--anyhow, I +will." + +"What do you mean?" panted Mr. Trimm, full of terror. "You'll help me?" + +"I mean this," said the tramp slowly. He put his hands under his +loose-hanging overcoat and began to fumble at a leather strap about his +waist. "If I turn you over to the Government I know wot you'll be worth, +purty near, by guessin' at the reward; an' besides, it'll maybe help to +square me up fur one or two little matters. If I turn you loose I ain't +got nothin' only your word--an' I've got an idea how much faith I kin +put in that." + +Mr. Trimm glanced about him wildly. There was no escape. He was fast in +a trap which he himself had sprung. The thought of being led to jail, +all foul of body and fettered as he was, by this filthy, smirking wretch +made him crazy. He stumbled backward with some insane idea of running +away. + +"No hurry, no hurry a-tall," gloated the tramp, enjoying the torture of +this helpless captive who had walked into his hands. "I ain't goin' to +hurt you none--only make sure that you don't wander off an' hurt +yourself while I'm gone. Won't do to let you be damagin' yoreself; +you're valuable property. Trimm, now, I'll tell you wot we'll do! We'll +just back you up agin one of these trees an' then we'll jest slip this +here belt through yore elbows an' buckle it around behind at the back; +an' I kinder guess you'll stay right there till I go down yonder to that +station that I passed comin' up here an' see wot kind of a bargain I kin +strike up with the marshal. Come on, now," he threatened with a show of +bluster, reading the resolution that was mounting in Mr. Trimm's face. +"Come on peaceable, if you don't want to git hurt." + +Of a sudden Mr. Trimm became the primitive man. He was filled with those +elemental emotions that make a man see in spatters of crimson. Gathering +strength from passion out of an exhausted frame, he sprang forward at +the tramp. He struck at him with his head, his shoulders, his knees, his +manacled wrists, all at once. Not really hurt by the puny assault, but +caught by surprise, the freckled man staggered back, clawing at the air, +tripped on the washboiler in the fire, and with a yell vanished below +the smooth edge of the cut. + +Mr. Trimm stole forward and looked over the bluff. Half-way down the +cliff on an outcropping shelf of rock the man lay, face downward, +motionless. He seemed to have grown smaller and to have shrunk into his +clothes. One long, thin leg was bent up under the skirts of the overcoat +in a queer, twisted way, and the cloth of the trouser leg looked +flattened and empty. As Mr. Trimm peered down at him he saw a red stain +spreading on the rock under the still, silent figure's head. + +Mr. Trimm turned to the washboiler. It lay on its side, empty, the last +of its recent contents sputtering out into the half-drowned fire. He +stared at this ruin a minute. Then without another look over the cliff +edge he stumbled slowly down the hill, muttering to himself as he went. +Just as he struck the level it began to rain, gently at first, then +hard, and despite the shelter of the full-leaved forest trees, he was +soon wet through to his skin and dripped water as he lurched along +without sense of direction or, indeed, without any active realization of +what he was doing. + + * * * * * + +Late that night it was still raining--a cold, steady, autumnal downpour. +A huddled figure slowly climbed upon a low fence running about the +house-yard of the little farm where the boy lived who got thrashed for +losing a milkpail. On the wet top rail, precariously perching, the +figure slipped and sprawled forward in the miry yard. It got up, +painfully swaying on its feet. It was Mr. Trimm, looking for food. He +moved slowly toward the house, tottering with weakness and because of +the slick mud underfoot; peering near-sightedly this way and that +through the murk; starting at every sound and stopping often to listen. + +The outlines of a lean-to kitchen at the back of the house were looming +dead ahead of him when from the corner of the cottage sprang a small +terrier. It made for Mr. Trimm, barking shrilly. He retreated backward, +kicking at the little dog and, to hold his balance, striking out with +short, dabby jerks of his fettered hands--they were such motions as the +terrier itself might make trying to walk on its hindlegs. Still backing +away, expecting every instant to feel the terrier's teeth in his flesh, +Mr. Trimm put one foot into a hotbed with a great clatter of the +breaking glass. He felt the sharp ends of shattered glass tearing and +cutting his shin as he jerked free. Recovering himself, he dealt the +terrier a lucky kick under the throat that sent it back, yowling, to +where it had come from, and then, as a door jerked open and a +half-dressed man jumped out into the darkness, Mr. Trimm half hobbled, +half fell out of sight behind the woodpile. + +Back and forth along the lower edge of his yard the farmer hunted, with +the whimpering, cowed terrier to guide him, poking in dark corners with +the muzzle of his shotgun for the unseen intruder whose coming had +aroused the household. In a brushpile just over the fence to the east +Mr. Trimm lay on his face upon the wet earth, with the rain beating down +on him, sobbing with choking gulps that wrenched him cruelly, biting at +the bonds on his wrists until the sound of breaking teeth gritted in the +air. Finally, in the hopeless, helpless frenzy of his agony he beat his +arms up and down until the bracelets struck squarely on a flat stone and +the force of the blow sent the cuffs home to the last notch so that they +pressed harder and faster than ever upon the tortured wrist bones. + +When he had wasted ten or fifteen minutes in a vain search the farmer +went shivering back indoors to dry out his wet shirt. But the groveling +figure in the brushpile lay for a long time where it was, only stirring +a little while the rain dripped steadily down on everything. + + * * * * * + +The wreck was on a Tuesday evening. Early on the Saturday morning +following the chief of police, who was likewise the whole of the day +police force in the town of Westfield, nine miles from the place where +the collision occurred, heard a peculiar, strangely weak knocking at +the front door of his cottage, where he also had his office. The door +was a Dutch door, sawed through the middle, so that the top half might +be opened independently, leaving the lower panel fast. He swung this top +half back. + +A face was framed in the opening--an indescribably dirty, unutterably +weary face, with matted white hair and a rime of whitish beard stubble +on the jaws. It was fallen in and sunken and it drooped on the chest of +its owner. The mouth, swollen and pulpy, as if from repeated hard blows, +hung agape, and between the purplish parted lips showed the stumps of +broken teeth. The eyes blinked weakly at the chief from under lids as +colorless as the eyelids of a corpse. The bare white head was filthy +with plastered mud and twigs, and dripping wet. + +"Hello, there!" said the chief, startled at this apparition. "What do +you want?" + +With a movement that told of straining effort the lolled head came up +off the chest. The thin, corded neck stiffened back, rising from a +dirty, collarless neckband. The Adam's apple bulged out prominently, as +big as a pigeon's egg. + +"I have come," said the specter in a wheezing rasp of a voice which the +chief could hardly hear--"I have come to surrender myself. I am Hobart +W. Trimm." + +"I guess you got another thing comin'," said the chief, who was by way +of being a neighborhood wag. "When last seen Hobart W. Trimm was only +fifty-two years old. Besides which, he's dead and buried. I guess maybe +you'd better think agin, grandpap, and see if you ain't Methus'lah or +the Wanderin' Jew." + +"I am Hobart W. Trimm, the banker," whispered the stranger with a sort +of wan stubbornness. + +"Go on and prove it," suggested the chief, more than willing to prolong +the enjoyment of the sensation. It wasn't often in Westfield that +wandering lunatics came a-calling. + +"Got any way to prove it?" he repeated as the visitor stared at him. + +"Yes," came the creaking, rusted hinge of a voice, "I have." + +Slowly, with struggling attempts, he raised his hands into the chief's +sight. They were horribly swollen hands, red with the dried blood where +they were not black with the dried dirt; the fingers puffed up out of +shape; the nails broken; they were like the skinned paws of a bear. And +at the wrists, almost buried in the bloated folds of flesh, blackened, +rusted, battered, yet still strong and whole, was a tightly-locked pair +of Bean's Latest Model Little Giant handcuffs. + +"Great God!" cried the chief, transfixed at the sight. He drew the bolt +and jerked open the lower half of the door. + +"Come in," he said, "and lemme get them irons off of you--they must hurt +something terrible." + +"They can wait," said Mr. Trimm very feebly, very slowly and very +humbly. "I have worn them a long, long while--I am used to them. +Wouldn't you please get me some food first?" + + + + +II + +THE BELLED BUZZARD + + +There was a swamp known as Little Niggerwool, to distinguish it from Big +Niggerwool, which lay across the river. It was traversable only by those +who knew it well--an oblong stretch of tawny mud and tawny water, +measuring maybe four miles its longest way and two miles roughly at its +widest; and it was full of cypress and stunted swamp oak, with edgings +of canebrake and rank weeds; and in one place, where a ridge crossed it +from side to side, it was snaggled like an old jaw with dead tree +trunks, rising close-ranked and thick as teeth. It was untenanted of +living things--except, down below, there were snakes and mosquitoes, and +a few wading and swimming fowl; and up above, those big woodpeckers that +the country people called logcocks--larger than pigeons, with flaming +crests and spiky tails--swooping in their long, loping flight from snag +to snag, always just out of gunshot of the chance invader, and uttering +a strident cry which matched those surroundings so fitly that it might +well have been the voice of the swamp itself. + +On one side little Niggerwool drained its saffron waters off into a +sluggish creek, where summer ducks bred, and on the other it ended +abruptly at a natural bank of high ground, along which the county +turnpike ran. The swamp came right up to the road and thrust its fringe +of reedy, weedy undergrowth forward as though in challenge to the good +farm lands that were spread beyond the barrier. At the time I am +speaking of it was mid-summer, and from these canes and weeds and +waterplants there came a smell so rank as almost to be overpowering. +They grew thick as a curtain, making a blank green wall taller than a +man's head. + +Along the dusty stretch of road fronting the swamp nothing living had +stirred for half an hour or more. And so at length the weed-stems +rustled and parted, and out from among them a man came forth silently +and cautiously. He was an old man--an old man who had once been fat, but +with age had grown lean again, so that now his skin was by odds too +large for him. It lay on the back of his neck in folds. Under the chin +he was pouched like a pelican and about the jowls was wattled like a +turkey gobbler. + +He came out upon the road slowly and stopped there, switching his legs +absently with the stalk of a horseweed. He was in his shirtsleeves--a +respectable, snuffy old figure; evidently a man deliberate in words and +thoughts and actions. There was something about him suggestive of an old +staid sheep that had been engaged in a clandestine transaction and was +afraid of being found out. + +He had made amply sure no one was in sight before he came out of the +swamp, but now, to be doubly certain, he watched the empty road--first +up, then down--for a long half minute, and fetched a sighing breath of +satisfaction. His eyes fell upon his feet, and, taken with an idea, he +stepped back to the edge of the road and with a wisp of crabgrass wiped +his shoes clean of the swamp mud, which was of a different color and +texture from the soil of the upland. All his life Squire H. B. Gathers +had been a careful, canny man, and he had need to be doubly careful on +this summer morning. Having disposed of the mud on his feet, he settled +his white straw hat down firmly upon his head, and, crossing the road, +he climbed a stake-and-rider fence laboriously and went plodding +sedately across a weedfield and up a slight slope toward his house, half +a mile away, upon the crest of the little hill. + +He felt perfectly natural--not like a man who had just taken a +fellowman's life--but natural and safe, and well satisfied with himself +and with his morning's work. And he was safe; that was the main +thing--absolutely safe. Without hitch or hindrance he had done the thing +for which he had been planning and waiting and longing all these months. +There had been no slip or mischance; the whole thing had worked out as +plainly and simply as two and two make four. No living creature except +himself knew of the meeting in the early morning at the head of Little +Niggerwool, exactly where the squire had figured they should meet; none +knew of the device by which the other man had been lured deeper and +deeper in the swamp to the exact spot where the gun was hidden. No one +had seen the two of them enter the swamp; no one had seen the squire +emerge, three hours later, alone. + +The gun, having served its purpose, was hidden again, in a place no +mortal eye would ever discover. Face downward, with a hole between his +shoulder blades, the dead man was lying where he might lie undiscovered +for months or for years, or forever. His pedler's pack was buried in +the mud so deep that not even the probing crawfishes could find it. He +would never be missed probably. There was but the slightest likelihood +that inquiry would ever be made for him--let alone a search. He was a +stranger and a foreigner, the dead man was, whose comings and goings +made no great stir in the neighborhood, and whose failure to come again +would be taken as a matter of course--just one of those shiftless, +wandering Dagoes, here today and gone tomorrow. That was one of the best +things about it--these Dagoes never had any people in this country to +worry about them or look for them when they disappeared. And so it was +all over and done with, and nobody the wiser. The squire clapped his +hands together briskly with the air of a man dismissing a subject from +his mind for good, and mended his gait. + +He felt no stabbings of conscience. On the contrary, a glow of +gratification filled him. His house was saved from scandal; his present +wife would philander no more--before his very eyes--with these young +Dagoes, who came from nobody knew where, with packs on their backs and +persuasive, wheedling tongues in their heads. At this thought the squire +raised his head and considered his homestead. It looked good to him--the +small white cottage among the honey locusts, with beehives and flower +beds about it; the tidy whitewashed fence; the sound outbuildings at the +back, and the well-tilled acres roundabout. + +At the fence he halted and turned about, carelessly and casually, and +looked back along the way he had come. Everything was as it should +be--the weedfield steaming in the heat; the empty road stretching along +the crooked ridge like a long gray snake sunning itself; and beyond it, +massing up, the dark, cloaking stretch of swamp. Everything was all +right, but----The squire's eyes, in their loose sacs of skin, narrowed +and squinted. Out of the blue arch away over yonder a small black dot +had resolved itself and was swinging to and fro, like a mote. A +buzzard--hey? Well, there were always buzzards about on a clear day like +this. Buzzards were nothing to worry about--almost any time you could +see one buzzard, or a dozen buzzards if you were a mind to look for +them. + +But this particular buzzard now--wasn't he making for Little Niggerwool? +The squire did not like the idea of that. He had not thought of the +buzzards until this minute. Sometimes when cattle strayed the owners had +been known to follow the buzzards, knowing mighty well that if the +buzzards led the way to where the stray was, the stray would be past the +small salvage of hide and hoofs--but the owner's doubts would be set at +rest for good and all. + +There was a grain of disquiet in this. The squire shook his head to +drive the thought away--yet it persisted, coming back like a midge +dancing before his face. Once at home, however, Squire Gathers deported +himself in a perfectly normal manner. With the satisfied proprietorial +eye of an elderly husband who has no rivals, he considered his young +wife, busied about her household duties. He sat in an easy-chair upon +his front gallery and read his yesterday's Courier-Journal which the +rural carrier had brought him; but he kept stepping out into the yard +to peer up into the sky and all about him. To the second Mrs. Gathers he +explained that he was looking for weather signs. A day as hot and still +as this one was a regular weather breeder; there ought to be rain before +night. + +"Maybe so," she said; "but looking's not going to bring rain." + +Nevertheless the squire continued to look. There was really nothing to +worry about; still at midday he did not eat much dinner, and before his +wife was half through with hers he was back on the gallery. His paper +was cast aside and he was watching. The original buzzard--or, anyhow, he +judged it was the first one he had seen--was swinging back and forth in +great pendulum swings, but closer down toward the swamp--closer and +closer--until it looked from that distance as though the buzzard flew +almost at the level of the tallest snags there. And on beyond this first +buzzard, coursing above him, were other buzzards. Were there four of +them? No; there were five--five in all. + +Such is the way of the buzzard--that shifting black question mark which +punctuates a Southern sky. In the woods a shoat or a sheep or a horse +lies down to die. At once, coming seemingly out of nowhere, appears a +black spot, up five hundred feet or a thousand in the air. In broad +loops and swirls this dot swings round and round and round, coming a +little closer to earth at every turn and always with one particular spot +upon the earth for the axis of its wheel. Out of space also other moving +spots emerge and grow larger as they tack and jib and drop nearer, +coming in their leisurely buzzard way to the feast. There is no +haste--the feast will wait. If it is a dumb creature that has fallen +stricken the grim coursers will sooner or later be assembled about it +and alongside it, scrouging ever closer and closer to the dying thing, +with awkward out-thrustings of their naked necks and great dust-raising +flaps of the huge, unkempt wings; lifting their feathered shanks high +and stiffly like old crippled grave-diggers in overalls that are too +tight--but silent and patient all, offering no attack until the last +tremor runs through the stiffening carcass and the eyes glaze over. To +humans the buzzard pays a deeper meed of respect--he hangs aloft longer; +but in the end he comes. No scavenger shark, no carrion crab, ever +chambered more grisly secrets in his digestive processes than this big +charnel bird. Such is the way of the buzzard. + + * * * * * + +The squire missed his afternoon nap, a thing that had not happened in +years. He stayed on the front gallery and kept count. Those moving +distant black specks typified uneasiness for the squire--not fear +exactly, or panic or anything akin to it, but a nibbling, nagging kind +of uneasiness. Time and again he said to himself that he would not think +about them any more; but he did--unceasingly. + +By supper time there were seven of them. + + * * * * * + +He slept light and slept badly. It was not the thought of that dead man +lying yonder in Little Niggerwool that made him toss and fume while his +wife snored gently alongside him. It was something else altogether. +Finally his stirrings roused her and she asked him drowsily what ailed +him. Was he sick? Or bothered about anything? + +Irritated, he answered her snappishly. Certainly nothing was bothering +him, he told her. It was a hot enough night--wasn't it? And when a man +got a little along in life he was apt to be a light sleeper--wasn't that +so? Well, then? She turned upon her side and slept again with her light, +purring snore. The squire lay awake, thinking hard and waiting for day +to come. + +At the first faint pink-and-gray glow he was up and out upon the +gallery. He cut a comic figure standing there in his shirt in the half +light, with the dewlap at his throat dangling grotesquely in the neck +opening of the unbuttoned garment, and his bare bowed legs showing, +splotched and varicose. He kept his eyes fixed on the skyline below, to +the south. Buzzards are early risers too. Presently, as the heavens +shimmered with the miracle of sunrise, he could make them out--six or +seven, or maybe eight. + +An hour after breakfast the squire was on his way down through the +weedfield to the county road. He went half eagerly, half unwillingly. He +wanted to make sure about those buzzards. It might be that they were +aiming for the old pasture at the head of the swamp. There were sheep +grazing there--and it might be that a sheep had died. Buzzards were +notoriously fond of sheep, when dead. Or, if they were pointed for the +swamp, he must satisfy himself exactly what part of the swamp it was. He +was at the stake-and-rider fence when a mare came jogging down the road, +drawing a rig with a man in it. At sight of the squire in the field the +man pulled up. + +"Hi, squire!" he saluted. "Goin' somewheres?" + +"No; jest knockin' about," the squire said--"jest sorter lookin' the +place over." + +"Hot agin--ain't it?" said the other. + +The squire allowed that it was, for a fact, mighty hot. Commonplaces of +gossip followed this--county politics and a neighbor's wife sick of +breakbone fever down the road a piece. The subject of crops succeeded +inevitably. The squire spoke of the need of rain. Instantly he regretted +it, for the other man, who was by way of being a weather wiseacre, +cocked his head aloft to study the sky for any signs of clouds. + +"Wonder whut all them buzzards are doin' yonder, squire," he said, +pointing upward with his whipstock. + +"Whut buzzards--where?" asked the squire with an elaborate note of +carelessness in his voice. + +"Right yonder, over Little Niggerwool--see 'em there?" + +"Oh, yes," the squire made answer. "Now I see 'em. They ain't doin' +nothin', I reckin--jest flyin' round same as they always do in clear +weather." + +"Must be somethin' dead over there!" speculated the man in the buggy. + +"A hawg probably," said the squire promptly--almost too promptly. +"There's likely to be hawgs usin' in Niggerwool. Bristow, over on the +other side from here--he's got a big drove of hawgs." + +"Well, mebbe so," said the man; "but hawgs is a heap more apt to be +feedin' on high ground, seems like to me. Well, I'll be gittin' along +towards town. G'day, squire." And he slapped the lines down on the +mare's flank and jogged off through the dust. + +He could not have suspected anything--that man couldn't. As the squire +turned away from the road and headed for his house he congratulated +himself upon that stroke of his in bringing in Bristow's hogs; and yet +there remained this disquieting note in the situation, that buzzards +flying, and especially buzzards flying over Little Niggerwool, made +people curious--made them ask questions. + +He was half-way across the weedfield when, above the hum of insect life, +above the inward clamor of his own busy speculations, there came to his +ear dimly and distantly a sound that made him halt and cant his head to +one side the better to hear it. Somewhere, a good way off, there was a +thin, thready, broken strain of metallic clinking and clanking--an eery +ghost-chime ringing. It came nearer and became plainer--tonk-tonk-tonk; +then the tonks all running together briskly. + +A sheep bell or a cowbell--that was it; but why did it seem to come from +overhead, from up in the sky, like? And why did it shift so abruptly +from one quarter to another--from left to right and back again to left? +And how was it that the clapper seemed to strike so fast? Not even the +breachiest of breachy young heifers could be expected to tinkle a +cowbell with such briskness. The squire's eye searched the earth and the +sky, his troubled mind giving to his eye a quick and flashing scrutiny. +He had it. It was not a cow at all. It was not anything that went on +four legs. + +One of the loathly flock had left the others. The orbit of his swing had +carried him across the road and over Squire Gathers' land. He was +sailing right toward and over the squire now. Craning his flabby neck, +the squire could make out the unwholesome contour of the huge bird. He +could see the ragged black wings--a buzzard's wings are so often ragged +and uneven--and the naked throat; the slim, naked head; the big feet +folded up against the dingy belly. And he could see a bell too--an +undersized cowbell--that dangled at the creature's breast and jangled +incessantly. All his life nearly Squire Gathers had been hearing about +the Belled Buzzard. Now with his own eye he was seeing him. + +Once, years and years and years ago, some one trapped a buzzard, and +before freeing it clamped about its skinny neck a copper band with a +cowbell pendent from it. Since then the bird so ornamented has been seen +a hundred times--and heard oftener--over an area as wide as half the +continent. It has been reported, now in Kentucky, now in Texas, now in +North Carolina--now anywhere between the Ohio River and the Gulf. +Crossroads correspondents take their pens in hand to write to the +country papers that on such and such a date, at such a place, So-and-So +saw the Belled Buzzard. Always it is the Belled Buzzard, never a belled +buzzard. The Belled Buzzard is an institution. + +There must be more than one of them. It seems hard to believe that one +bird, even a buzzard in his prime, and protected by law in every +Southern state and known to be a bird of great age, could live so long +and range so far and wear a clinking cowbell all the time! Probably +other jokers have emulated the original joker; probably if the truth +were known there have been a dozen such; but the country people will +have it that there is only one Belled Buzzard--a bird that bears a +charmed life and on his neck a never silent bell. + + * * * * * + +Squire Gathers regarded it a most untoward thing that the Belled Buzzard +should have come just at this time. The movements of ordinary, unmarked +buzzards mainly concerned only those whose stock had strayed; but almost +anybody with time to spare might follow this rare and famous visitor, +this belled and feathered junkman of the sky. Supposing now that some +one followed it today--maybe followed it even to a certain thick clump +of cypress in the middle of Little Niggerwool! + +But at this particular moment the Belled Buzzard was heading directly +away from that quarter. Could it be following him? Of course not! It was +just by chance that it flew along the course the squire was taking. But, +to make sure, he veered off sharply, away from the footpath into the +high weeds so that the startled grasshoppers sprayed up in front of him +in fan-like flights. + +He was right; it was only a chance. The Belled Buzzard swung off too, +but in the opposite direction, with a sharp tonking of its bell, and, +flapping hard, was in a minute or two out of hearing and sight, past +the trees to the westward. + +Again the squire skimped his dinner, and again he spent the long drowsy +afternoon upon his front gallery. In all the sky there were now no +buzzards visible, belled or unbelled--they had settled to earth +somewhere; and this served somewhat to soothe the squire's pestered +mind. This does not mean, though, that he was by any means easy in his +thoughts. Outwardly he was calm enough, with the ruminative judicial air +befitting the oldest justice of the peace in the county; but, within +him, a little something gnawed unceasingly at his nerves like one of +those small white worms that are to be found in seemingly sound nuts. +About once in so long a tiny spasm of the muscles would contract the +dewlap under his chin. The squire had never heard of that play, made +famous by a famous player, wherein the murdered victim was a pedler +too, and a clamoring bell the voice of unappeasable remorse in the +murderer's ear. As a strict churchgoer the squire had no use for players +or for play actors, and so was spared that added canker to his +conscience. It was bad enough as it was. + +That night, as on the night before, the old man's sleep was broken and +fitful and disturbed by dreaming, in which he heard a metal clapper +striking against a brazen surface. This was one dream that came true. +Just after daybreak he heaved himself out of bed, with a flop of his +broad bare feet upon the floor, and stepped to the window and peered +out. Half seen in the pinkish light, the Belled Buzzard flapped directly +over his roof and flew due south, right toward the swamp--drawing a +direct line through the air between the slayer and the victim--or, +anyway, so it seemed to the watcher, grown suddenly tremulous. + + * * * * * + +Knee deep in yellow swamp water the squire squatted, with his shotgun +cocked and loaded and ready, waiting to kill the bird that now typified +for him guilt and danger and an abiding great fear. Gnats plagued him +and about him frogs croaked. Almost overhead a log-cock clung lengthwise +to a snag, watching him. Snake doctors, limber, long insects with bronze +bodies and filmy wings, went back and forth like small living shuttles. +Other buzzards passed and repassed, but the squire waited, forgetting +the cramps in his elderly limbs and the discomfort of the water in his +shoes. + +At length he heard the bell. It came nearer and nearer, and the Belled +Buzzard swung overhead not sixty feet up, its black bulk a fair target +against the blue. He aimed and fired, both barrels bellowing at once and +a fog of thick powder smoke enveloping him. Through the smoke he saw the +bird careen and its bell jangled furiously; then the buzzard righted +itself and was gone, fleeing so fast that the sound of its bell was +hushed almost instantly. Two long wing feathers drifted slowly down; +torn disks of gunwadding and shredded green scraps of leaves descended +about the squire in a little shower. + +He cast his empty gun from him so that it fell in the water and +disappeared; and he hurried out of the swamp as fast as his shaky legs +would take him, splashing himself with mire and water to his eyebrows. +Mucked with mud, breathing in great gulps, trembling, a suspicious +figure to any eye, he burst through the weed curtain and staggered into +the open, his caution all gone and a vast desperation fairly choking +him--but the gray road was empty and the field beyond the road was +empty; and, except for him, the whole world seemed empty and silent. + +As he crossed the field Squire Gathers composed himself. With plucked +handfuls of grass he cleansed himself of much of the swamp mire that +coated him over; but the little white worm that gnawed at his nerves had +become a cold snake that was coiled about his heart, squeezing it +tighter and tighter! + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "TWO LONG WING FEATHERS DRIFTED SLOWLY DOWN."--_Page 70._] + +This episode of the attempt to kill the Belled Buzzard occurred in the +afternoon of the third day. In the forenoon of the fourth, the weather +being still hot, with cloudless skies and no air stirring, there was a +rattle of warped wheels in the squire's lane and a hail at his yard +fence. Coming out upon his gallery from the innermost darkened room of his +house, where he had been stretched upon a bed, the squire shaded his +eyes from the glare and saw the constable of his own magisterial +district sitting in a buggy at the gate waiting. + +The old man went down the dirtpath slowly, almost reluctantly, with his +head twisted up side wise, listening, watching; but the constable sensed +nothing strange about the other's gait and posture; the constable was +full of the news he brought. He began to unload the burden of it without +preamble. + +"Mornin', Squire Gathers. There's been a dead man found in Little +Niggerwool--and you're wanted." + +He did not notice that the squire was holding on with both hands to the +gate; but he did notice that the squire had a sick look out of his eyes +and a dead, pasty color in his face; and he noticed--but attached no +meaning to it--that when the squire spoke his voice seemed flat and +hollow. + +"Wanted--fur--whut?" The squire forced the words out of his throat, +pumped them out fairly. + +"Why, to hold the inquest," explained the constable. "The coroner's sick +abed, and he said you bein' the nearest jestice of the peace you should +serve." + +"Oh," said the squire with more ease. "Well, where is it--the body?" + +"They taken it to Bristow's place and put it in his stable for the +present. They brought it out over on that side and his place was the +nearest. If you'll hop in here with me, squire, I'll ride you right over +there now. There's enough men already gathered to make up a jury, I +reckin." + +"I--I ain't well," demurred the squire. "I've been sleepin' porely these +last few nights. It's the heat," he added quickly. + +"Well, suh, you don't look very brash, and that's a fact," said the +constable; "but this here job ain't goin' to keep you long. You see it's +in such shape--the body is--that there ain't no way of makin' out who +the feller was nor whut killed him. There ain't nobody reported missin' +in this county as we know of, either; so I jedge a verdict of a unknown +person dead from unknown causes would be about the correct thing. And we +kin git it all over mighty quick and put him underground right away, +suh--if you'll go along now." + +"I'll go," agreed the squire, almost quivering in his newborn eagerness. +"I'll go right now." He did not wait to get his coat or to notify his +wife of the errand that was taking him. In his shirtsleeves he climbed +into the buggy, and the constable turned his horse and clucked him into +a trot. And now the squire asked the question that knocked at his lips +demanding to be asked--the question the answer to which he yearned for +and yet dreaded. + +"How did they come to find--it?" + +"Well, suh, that's a funny thing," said the constable. "Early this +mornin' Bristow's oldest boy--that one they call Buddy--he heared a +cowbell over in the swamp and so he went to look; Bristow's got cows, as +you know, and one or two of 'em is belled. And he kept on followin' +after the sound of it till he got way down into the thickest part of +them cypress slashes that's near the middle there; and right there he +run acrost it--this body. + +"But, suh, squire, it wasn't no cow at all. No, suh; it was a buzzard +with a cowbell on his neck--that's whut it was. Yes, suh; that there +same old Belled Buzzard he's come back agin and is hangin' round. They +tell me he ain't been seen round here since the year of the yellow +fever--I don't remember myself, but that's whut they tell me. The +niggers over on the other side are right smartly worked up over it. They +say--the niggers do--that when the Belled Buzzard comes it's a sign of +bad luck for somebody, shore!" + +The constable drove on, talking on, garrulous as a guinea hen. The +squire didn't heed him. Hunched back in the buggy, he harkened only to +those busy inner voices filling his mind with thundering portents. Even +so, his ear was first to catch above the rattle of the buggy wheels the +far-away, faint tonk-tonk! They were about half-way to Bristow's place +then. He gave no sign, and it was perhaps half a minute before his +companion heard it too. + +The constable jerked the horse to a standstill and craned his neck over +his shoulder. + +"Well, by doctors!" he cried, "if there ain't the old scoundrel now, +right here behind us! I kin see him plain as day--he's got an old +cowbell hitched to his neck; and he's shy a couple of feathers out of +one wing. By doctors, that's somethin' you won't see every day! In all +my born days I ain't never seen the beat of that!" + +Squire Gathers did not look; he only cowered back farther under the +buggy top. In the pleasing excitement of the moment his companion took +no heed, though, of anything except the Belled Buzzard. + +"Is he followin' us?" asked the squire in a curiously flat, weighted +voice. + +"Which--him?" answered the constable, still stretching his neck. "No, +he's gone now--gone off to the left--jest a-zoomin', like he'd done +forgot somethin'." + +And Bristow's place was to the left! But there might still be time. To +get the inquest over and the body underground--those were the main +things. Ordinarily humane in his treatment of stock, Squire Gathers +urged the constable to greater speed. The horse was lathered and his +sides heaved wearily as they pounded across the bridge over the creek +which was the outlet to the swamp and emerged from a patch of woods in +sight of Bristow's farm buildings. + +The house was set on a little hill among cleared fields and was in other +respects much like the squire's own house except that it was smaller and +not so well painted. There was a wide yard in front with shade trees and +a lye hopper and a well-box, and a paling fence with a stile in it +instead of a gate. At the rear, behind a clutter of outbuildings--a +barn, a smokehouse and a corncrib--was a little peach orchard, and +flanking the house on the right there was a good-sized cowyard, empty of +stock at this hour, with feedracks ranged in a row against the fence. A +two-year-old negro child, bareheaded and barefooted and wearing but a +single garment, was grubbing busily in the dirt under one of these +feedracks. + +To the front fence a dozen or more riding horses were hitched, flicking +their tails at the flies; and on the gallery men in their shirtsleeves +were grouped. An old negro woman, with her head tied in a bandanna and a +man's old slouch hat perched upon the bandanna, peeped out from behind a +corner. There were gaunt hound dogs wandering about, sniffing uneasily. + +Before the constable had the horse hitched the squire was out of the +buggy and on his way up the footpath, going at a brisker step than the +squire usually traveled. The men on the porch hailed him gravely and +ceremoniously, as befitting an occasion of solemnity. Afterward some of +them recalled the look in his eye; but at the moment they noted it--if +they noted it at all--subconsciously. + +For all his haste the squire, as was also remembered later, was almost +the last to enter the door; and before he did enter he halted and +searched the flawless sky as though for signs of rain. Then he hurried +on after the others, who clumped single file along a narrow little hall, +the bare, uncarpeted floor creaking loudly under their heavy farm shoes, +and entered a good-sized room that had in it, among other things, a +high-piled feather bed and a cottage organ--Bristow's best room, now to +be placed at the disposal of the law's representatives for the inquest. +The squire took the largest chair and drew it to the very center of the +room, in front of a fireplace, where the grate was banked with withering +asparagus ferns. The constable took his place formally at one side of +the presiding official. The others sat or stood about where they could +find room--all but six of them, whom the squire picked for his coroner's +jury, and who backed themselves against the wall. + +The squire showed haste. He drove the preliminaries forward with a sort +of tremulous insistence. Bristow's wife brought a bucket of fresh +drinking water and a gourd, and almost before she was out of the room +and the door closed behind her the squire had sworn his jurors and was +calling the first witness, who it seemed likely would also be the only +witness--Bristow's oldest boy. The boy wriggled in confusion as he sat +on a cane-bottomed chair facing the old magistrate. All there, barring +one or two, had heard his story a dozen times already, but now it was to +be repeated under oath; and so they bent their heads, listening as +though it were a brand-new tale. All eyes were on him; none were +fastened on the squire as he, too, gravely bent his head, +listening--listening. + +The witness began--but had no more than started when the squire gave a +great, screeching howl and sprang from his chair and staggered backward, +his eyes popped and the pouch under his chin quivering as though it had +a separate life all its own. Startled, the constable made toward him and +they struck together heavily and went down--both on their all +fours--right in front of the fireplace. + +The constable scrambled free and got upon his feet, in a squat of +astonishment, with his head craned; but the squire stayed upon the +floor, face downward, his feet flopping among the rustling asparagus +greens--a picture of slavering animal fear. And now his gagging screech +resolved itself into articulate speech. + +"I done it!" they made out his shrieked words. "I done it! I own up--I +killed him! He aimed fur to break up my home and I tolled him off into +Niggerwool and killed him! There's a hole in his back if you'll look +fur it. I done it--oh, I done it--and I'll tell everything jest like it +happened if you'll jest keep that thing away from me! Oh, my Lawdy! +Don't you hear it? It's a-comin' clos'ter and clos'ter--it's a-comin' +after me! Keep it away----" His voice gave out and he buried his head in +his hands and rolled upon the gaudy carpet. + +And now they all heard what he had heard first--they heard the +tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along +the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was +no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards--and the bell jangled +faster than it would dangling from a cow's neck. The sound came right to +the door and Squire Gathers wallowed among the chair legs. + +The door swung open. In the doorway stood a negro child, barefooted and +naked except for a single garment, eyeing them with serious, rolling +eyes--and, with all the strength of his two puny arms, proudly but +solemnly tolling a small rusty cowbell he had found in the cowyard. + + + + +III + +AN OCCURRENCE UP A SIDE STREET + + +"See if he's still there, will you?" said the man listlessly, as if +knowing in advance what the answer would be. + +The woman, who, like the man, was in her stocking feet, crossed the +room, closing the door with all softness behind her. She felt her way +silently through the darkness of a small hallway, putting first her ear +and then her eye to a tiny cranny in some thick curtains at a front +window. + +She looked downward and outward upon one of those New York side streets +that is precisely like forty other New York side streets: two unbroken +lines of high-shouldered, narrow-chested brick-and-stone houses, rising +in abrupt, straight cliffs; at the bottom of the canyon a narrow river +of roadway with manholes and conduit covers dotting its channel +intermittently like scattered stepping stones; and on either side wide, +flat pavements, as though the stream had fallen to low-water mark and +left bare its shallow banks. Daylight would have shown most of the +houses boarded up, with diamond-shaped vents, like leering eyes, cut in +the painted planking of the windows and doors; but now it was night +time--eleven o'clock of a wet, hot, humid night of the late summer--and +the street was buttoned down its length in the double-breasted fashion +of a bandmaster's coat with twin rows of gas lamps evenly spaced. Under +each small circle of lighted space the dripping, black asphalt had a +slimy, slick look like the sides of a newly caught catfish. Elsewhere +the whole vista lay all in close shadow, black as a cave mouth under +every stoop front and blacker still in the hooded basement areas. Only, +half a mile to the eastward a dim, distant flicker showed where Broadway +ran, a broad, yellow streak down the spine of the city, and high above +the broken skyline of eaves and cornices there rolled in cloudy waves +the sullen red radiance, born of a million electrics and the flares from +gas tanks and chimneys, which is only to be seen on such nights as this, +giving to the heaven above New York that same color tone you find in an +artist's conception of Babylon falling or Rome burning. + +From where the woman stood at the window she could make out the round, +white, mushroom top of a policeman's summer helmet as its wearer leaned +back, half sheltered under the narrow portico of the stoop just below +her; and she could see his uniform sleeve and his hand, covered with a +white cotton glove, come up, carrying a handkerchief, and mop the hidden +face under the helmet's brim. The squeak of his heavy shoes was plainly +audible to her also. While she stayed there, watching and listening, two +pedestrians--and only two--passed on her side of the street: a messenger +boy in a glistening rubber poncho going west and a man under an umbrella +going east. Each was hurrying along until he came just opposite her, and +then, as though controlled by the same set of strings, each stopped +short and looked up curiously at the blind, dark house and at the figure +lounging in the doorway, then hurried on without a word, leaving the +silent policeman fretfully mopping his moist face and tugging at the +wilted collar about his neck. + +After a minute or two at her peephole behind the window curtains above, +the woman passed back through the door to the inner, middle room where +the man sat. + +"Still there," she said lifelessly in the half whisper that she had come +to use almost altogether these last few days; "still there and sure to +stay there until another one just like him comes to take his place. What +else did you expect?" + +The man only nodded absently and went on peeling an overripe peach, +striking out constantly, with the hand that held the knife, at the +flies. They were green flies--huge, shiny-backed, buzzing, persistent +vermin. There were a thousand of them; there seemed to be a million of +them. They filled the shut-in room with their vile humming; they swarmed +everywhere in the half light. They were thickest, though, in a corner at +the back, where there was a closed, white door. Here a great knot of +them, like an iridescent, shimmering jewel, was clustered about the +keyhole. They scrolled the white enameled panels with intricate, +shifting patterns, and in pairs and singly they promenaded busily on the +white porcelain knob, giving it the appearance of being alive and having +a motion of its own. + +It was stiflingly hot and sticky in the room. The sweat rolled down the +man's face as he peeled his peach and pared some half-rotted spots out +of it. He protected it with a cupped palm as he bit into it. One huge +green fly flipped nimbly under the fending hand and lit on the peach. +With a savage little snarl of disgust and loathing the man shook the +clinging insect off and with the knife carved away the place where its +feet had touched the soft fruit. Then he went on munching, meanwhile +furtively watching the woman. She was on the opposite side of a small +center-table from him, with her face in her hands, shaking her head with +a little shuddering motion whenever one of the flies settled on her +close-cropped hair or brushed her bare neck. + +He was a smallish man, with a suggestion of something dapper about him +even in his present unkempt disorder; he might have been handsome, in a +weakly effeminate way, had not Nature or some mishap given his face a +twist that skewed it all to one side, drawing all of his features out of +focus, like a reflection viewed in a flawed mirror. He was no heavier +than the woman and hardly as tall. She, however, looked less than her +real height, seeing that she was dressed, like a half-grown boy, in a +soft-collared shirt open at the throat and a pair of loose trousers. She +had large but rather regular features, pouting lips, a clear brown skin +and full, prominent brown eyes; and one of them had a pronounced cast in +it--an imperfection already made familiar by picture and printed +description to sundry millions of newspaper readers. For this was Ella +Gilmorris, the woman in the case of the Gilmorris murder, about which +the continent of North America was now reading and talking. And the +little man with the twisted face, who sat across from her, gnawing a +peach stone clean, was the notorious "Doctor" Harris Devine, alias +Vanderburg, her accomplice, and worth more now to society in his present +untidy state than ever before at any one moment of his whole +discreditable life, since for his capture the people of the state of New +York stood willing to pay the sum of one thousand dollars, which tidy +reward one of the afternoon papers had increased by another thousand. + +Everywhere detectives--amateurs and the kind who work for hire--were +seeking the pair who at this precise moment faced each other across a +little center-table in the last place any searcher would have suspected +or expected them to be--on the second floor of the house in which the +late Cassius Gilmorris had been killed. This, then, was the situation: +inside, these two fugitives, watchful, silent, their eyes red-rimmed for +lack of sleep, their nerves raw and tingling as though rasped with +files, each busy with certain private plans, each fighting off +constantly the touch of the nasty scavenger flies that flickered and +flitted iridescently about them; outside, in the steamy, hot drizzle, +with his back to the locked and double-locked door, a leg-weary +policeman, believing that he guarded a house all empty except for such +evidences as yet remained of the Gilmorris murder. + + * * * * * + +It was one of those small, chancy things that so often disarrange the +best laid plots of murderers that had dished their hope of a clean +getaway and brought them back, at the last, to the starting point. If +the plumber's helper, who was sent to cure a bathtub of leaking in the +house next door, had not made a mistake and come to the wrong number; +and if they, in the haste of flight, had not left an area door +unfastened; and if this young plumbing apprentice, stumbling his way +upstairs on the hunt for the misbehaving drain, had not opened the white +enameled door and found inside there what he did find--if this small +sequence of incidents had not occurred as it did and when it did, or if +only it had been delayed another twenty-four hours, or even twelve, +everything might have turned out differently. But fate, to call it by +its fancy name--coincidence, to use its garden one--interfered, as it +usually does in cases such as this. And so here they were. + +The man had been on his way to the steamship office to get the tickets +when an eruption of newsboys boiled out of Mail Street into Broadway, +with extras on their arms, all shouting out certain words that sent him +scurrying back in a panic to the small, obscure family hotel in the +lower thirties where the woman waited. From that moment it was she, +really, who took the initiative in all the efforts to break through the +doubled and tripled lines that the police machinery looped about the +five boroughs of the city. + +At dark that evening "Mr. and Mrs. A. Thompson, of Jersey City," a quiet +couple who went closely muffled up, considering that it was August, and +carrying heavy valises, took quarters at a dingy furnished room house on +a miscalled avenue of Brooklyn not far from the Wall Street ferries and +overlooking the East River waterfront from its bleary back windows. Two +hours later a very different-looking pair issued quietly from a side +entrance of this place and vanished swiftly down toward the docks. The +thing was well devised and carried out well too; yet by morning the +detectives, already ranging and quartering the town as bird-dogs quarter +a brier-field, had caught up again and pieced together the broken ends +of the trail; and, thanks to them and the newspapers, a good many +thousand wide awake persons were on the lookout for a plump, +brown-skinned young woman with a cast in her right eye, wearing a boy's +disguise and accompanied by a slender little man carrying his head +slightly to one side, who when last seen wore smoked glasses and had his +face extensively bandaged, as though suffering from a toothache. + +Then had followed days and nights of blind twisting and dodging and +hiding, with the hunt growing warmer behind them all the time. Through +this they were guided and at times aided by things printed in the very +papers that worked the hardest to run them down. Once they ventured as +far as the outer entrance of the great, new uptown terminal, and turned +away, too far gone and sick with fear to dare run the gauntlet of the +waiting room and the train-shed. Once--because they saw a made-up +Central Office man in every lounging long-shoreman, and were not so far +wrong either--they halted at the street end of one of the smaller piers +and from there watched a grimy little foreign boat that carried no +wireless masts and that might have taken them to any one of half a dozen +obscure banana ports of South America--watched her while she hiccoughed +out into midstream and straightened down the river for the open +bay--watched her out of sight and then fled again to their newest hiding +place in the lower East Side in a cold sweat, with the feeling that +every casual eye glance from every chance passer-by carried suspicion +and recognition in its flash, that every briskening footstep on the +pavement behind them meant pursuit. + +Once in that tormented journey there was a sudden jingle of metal, like +rattling handcuffs, in the man's ear and a heavy hand fell detainingly +on his shoulder--and he squeaked like a caught shore-bird and shrunk +away from under the rough grips of a truckman who had yanked him clear +of a lurching truck horse tangled in its own traces. Then, finally, had +come a growing distrust for their latest landlord, a stolid Russian Jew +who read no papers and knew no English, and saw in his pale pair of +guests only an American lady and gentleman who kept much to their room +and paid well in advance for everything; and after that, in the hot +rainy night, the flight afoot across weary miles of soaking cross +streets and up through ill-lighted, shabby avenues to the one place of +refuge left open to them. They had learned from the newspapers, at once +a guide and a bane, a friend and a dogging enemy, that the place was +locked up, now that the police had got through searching it, and that +the coroner's people held the keys. And the woman knew of a faulty catch +on a rear cellar window, and so, in a fit of stark desperation bordering +on lunacy, back they ran, like a pair of spent foxes circling to a +burrow from which they have been smoked out. + +Again it was the woman who picked for her companion the easiest path +through the inky-black alley, and with her own hands she pulled down +noiselessly the broken slats of the rotting wooden wall at the back of +the house. And then, soon, they were inside, with the reeking heat of +the boxed-up house and the knowledge that at any moment discovery might +come bursting in upon them--inside with their busy thoughts and the busy +green flies. How persistent the things were--shake them off a hundred +times and back they came buzzing! And where had they all come from? +There had been none of them about before, surely, and now their +maddening, everlasting droning filled the ear. And what nasty creatures +they were, forever cleaning their shiny wings and rubbing the ends of +their forelegs together with the loathsome suggestion of little +grave-diggers anointing their palms. To the woman, at least, these flies +almost made bearable the realization that, at best, this stopping point +could be only a temporary one, and that within a few hours a fresh start +must somehow be made, with fresh dangers to face at every turning. + + * * * * * + +It was during this last hideous day of flight and terror that the thing +which had been growing in the back part of the brain of each of them +began to assume shape and a definite aspect. The man had the craftier +mind, but the woman had a woman's intuition, and she already had read +his thoughts while yet he had no clue to hers. For the primal instinct +of self-preservation, blazing up high, had burned away the bond of bogus +love that held them together while they were putting her drunkard of a +husband out of the way, and now there only remained to tie them fast +this partnership of a common guilt. + +In these last few hours they had both come to know that together there +was no chance of ultimate escape; traveling together the very disparity +of their compared appearances marked them with a fatal and unmistakable +conspicuousness, as though they were daubed with red paint from the same +paint brush; staying together meant ruin--certain, sure. Now, then, +separated and going singly, there might be a thin strand of hope. Yet +the man felt that, parted a single hour from the woman, and she still +alive, his wofully small prospect would diminish and shrink to the +vanishing point--New York juries being most notoriously easy upon women +murderers who give themselves up and turn state's evidence; and, by the +same mistaken processes of judgment, notoriously hard upon their male +accomplices--half a dozen such instances had been playing in flashes +across his memory already. + +Neither had so much as hinted at separating. The man didn't speak, +because of a certain idea that had worked itself all out hours before +within his side-flattened skull. The woman likewise had refrained from +putting in words the suggestion that had been uppermost in her brain +from the time they broke into the locked house. Some darting look of +quick, malignant suspicion from him, some inner warning sense, held her +mute at first; and later, as the newborn hate and dread of him grew and +mastered her and she began to canvass ways and means to a certain end, +she stayed mute still. + +Whatever was to be done must be done quietly, without a struggle--the +least sound might arouse the policeman at the door below. One thing was +in her favor--she knew he was not armed; he had the contempt and the +fear of a tried and proved poisoner for cruder lethal tools. + +It was characteristic also of the difference between these two that +Devine should have had his plan stage-set and put to motion long before +the woman dreamed of acting. It was all within his orderly scheme of the +thing proposed that he, a shrinking coward, should have set his squirrel +teeth hard and risked detection twice in that night: once to buy a +basket of overripe fruit from a dripping Italian at a sidewalk stand, +taking care to get some peaches--he just must have a peach, he had +explained to her; and once again when he entered a dark little store on +Second Avenue, where liquors were sold in their original packages, and +bought from a sleepy, stupid clerk two bottles of a cheap domestic +champagne--"to give us the strength for making a fresh start," he told +her glibly, as an excuse for taking this second risk. So, then, with the +third essential already resting at the bottom of an inner waistcoat +pocket, he was prepared; and he had been waiting for his opportunity +from the moment when they crept in through the basement window and felt +their way along, she resolutely leading, to the windowless, shrouded +middle room here on the second floor. + + * * * * * + +How she hated him, feared him too! He could munch his peaches and uncork +his warm, cheap wine in this very room, with that bathroom just yonder +and these flies all about. From under her fingers, interlaced over her +forehead, her eyes roved past him, searching the littered room for the +twentieth time in the hour, looking, seeking--and suddenly they fell on +something--a crushed and rumpled hat of her own, a milliner's +masterpiece, laden with florid plumage, lying almost behind him on a +couch end where some prying detective had dropped it, with a big, round +black button shining dully from the midst of its damaged tulle crown. +She knew that button well. It was the imitation-jet head of a hatpin--a +steel hatpin--that was ten inches long and maybe longer. + +She looked and looked at the round, dull knob, like a mystic held by a +hypnotist's crystal ball, and she began to breathe a little faster; she +could feel her resolution tighten within her like a turning screw. + +Beneath her brows, heavy and thick for a woman's, her eyes flitted back +to the man. With the careful affectation of doing nothing at all, a +theatricalism that she detected instantly, but for which she could guess +no reason, he was cutting away at the damp, close-gnawed seed of the +peach, trying apparently to fashion some little trinket--a toy basket, +possibly--from it. His fingers moved deftly over its slick, wet surface. +He had already poured out some of the champagne. One of the pint bottles +stood empty, with the distorted button-headed cork lying beside it, and +in two glasses the yellow wine was fast going flat and dead in that +stifling heat. It still spat up a few little bubbles to the surface, as +though minute creatures were drowning in it down below. The man was +sweating more than ever, so that, under the single, low-turned gas jet, +his crooked face had a greasy shine to it. A church clock down in the +next block struck twelve slowly. The sleepless flies buzzed evilly. + +"Look out again, won't you?" he said for perhaps the tenth time in two +hours. "There's a chance, you know, that he might be gone--just a bare +chance. And be sure you close the door into the hall behind you," he +added as if by an afterthought. "You left it ajar once--this light might +show through the window draperies." + +At his bidding she rose more willingly than at any time before. To reach +the door she passed within a foot of the end of the couch, and watching +over her shoulder at his hunched-up back she paused there for the +smallest fraction of time. The damaged picture hat slid off on the floor +with a soft little thud, but he never turned around. + +The instant, though, that the hall door closed behind her the man's +hands became briskly active. He fumbled in an inner pocket of his +unbuttoned waistcoat; then his right hand, holding a small cylindrical +vial of a colorless liquid, passed swiftly over one of the two glasses +of slaking champagne and hovered there a second. A few tiny globules +fell dimpling into the top of the yellow wine, then vanished; a heavy +reek, like the smell of crushed peach kernels, spread through the whole +room. In the same motion almost he recorked the little bottle, stowed it +out of sight, and with a quick, wrenching thrust that bent the small +blade of his penknife in its socket he split the peach seed in two +lengthwise and with his thumb-nail bruised the small brown kernel lying +snugly within. He dropped the knife and the halved seed and began +sipping at the undoctored glass of champagne, not forgetting even then +to wave his fingers above it to keep the winged green tormentors out. + +The door at the front reopened and the woman came in. Her thoughts were +not upon smells, but instinctively she sniffed at the thick scent on the +poisoned air. + +"I accidentally split this peach seed open," he said quickly, with an +elaborate explanatory air. "Stenches up the whole place, don't it? Come, +take that other glass of champagne--it will do you good to----" + +Perhaps it was some subtle sixth sense that warned him; perhaps the +lightning-quick realization that she had moved right alongside him, +poised and set to strike. At any rate he started to fling up his +head--too late! The needle point of the jet-headed hatpin entered +exactly at the outer corner of his right eye and passed backward for +nearly its full length into his brain--smoothly, painlessly, swiftly. He +gave a little surprised gasp, almost like a sob, and lolled his head +back against the chair rest, like a man who has grown suddenly tired. +The hand that held the champagne glass relaxed naturally and the glass +turned over on its side with a small tinkling sound and spilled its thin +contents on the table. + +It had been easier than she had thought it would be. She stepped back, +still holding the hatpin. She moved around from behind him, and then she +saw his face, half upturned, almost directly beneath the low light. +There was no blood, no sign even of the wound, but his jaw had dropped +down unpleasantly, showing the ends of his lower front teeth, and his +eyes stared up unwinkingly with a puzzled, almost a disappointed, look +in them. A green fly lit at the outer corner of his right eye; more +green flies were coming. And he didn't put up his hand to brush it away. +He let it stay--he let it stay there. + +With her eyes still fixed on his face, the woman reached out, feeling +for her glass of the champagne. She felt that she needed it now, and at +a gulp she took a good half of it down her throat. + +She put the glass down steadily enough on the table; but into her eyes +came the same puzzled, baffled look that his wore, and almost gently she +slipped down into the chair facing him. + +Then her jaw lolled a little too, and some of the other flies came +buzzing toward her. + + + + +IV + +ANOTHER OF THOSE CUB REPORTER STORIES + + +The first time I saw Major Putnam Stone I didn't see him first. To be +exact, I heard him first, and then I walked round the end of a +seven-foot partition and saw him. + +I had just gone to work for the Evening Press. As I recall now it was my +second day, and I hadn't begun to feel at home there yet, and probably +was more sensitive to outside sights and noises than I would ever again +be in that place. Generally speaking, when a reporter settles down to +his knitting, which in his case is his writing, he becomes impervious to +all disturbances excepting those that occur inside his own brainpan. If +he couldn't, he wouldn't amount to shucks in his trade. Give him a good, +live-action story to write for an edition going to press in about nine +minutes, and the rattles and slams of half a dozen typewriting machines, +and the blattings of a pestered city editor, and the gabble of a couple +of copy boys at his elbow, and all the rest of it won't worry him. He +may not think he hears it, but he does, only instead of being +distracting it is stimulating. It's all a part of the mechanism of the +shop, helping him along unconsciously to speed and efficiency. I've +often thought that, when I was handling a good, bloody murder story, +say, it would tone up my style to have a phonograph about ten feet away +grinding out The Last Ravings of John McCullough. Anyway, I am sure it +wouldn't do any harm. A brass band playing a John Philip Sousa march +makes fine accompaniment to write copy to. I've done it before now, +covering parades and conventions, and I know. + +But on this particular occasion I was, as I say, new to the job and +maybe a little nervous to boot, and as I sat there, trying to frame a +snappy opening paragraph for the interview I had just brought back with +me from one of the hotels, I became aware of a voice somewhere in the +immediate vicinity, a voice that didn't jibe in with my thoughts. At the +moment I stopped to listen it was saying: "As for me, sir, I have always +contended that the ultimate fate of the cause was due in great measure +to the death of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh on the evening of the +first day's fight. Now then, what would have been the final result if +Albert Sidney Johnston had lived? I ask you, gentlemen, what would have +been the final result if Albert Sidney Johnston had lived?" + +Across the room from me I heard Devore give a hollow groan. His desk was +backed right up against the cross partition, and the partition was built +of thin pine boards and was like a sounding board in his ear. Devore was +city editor. + +"Oh, thunder!" he said, half under his breath, "I'll be the goat! What +would have been the result if Albert Sidney Johnston had lived?" He +looked at me and gave a wink of serio-comic despair, and then he ran his +blue pencil up through his hair and left a blue streak like a scar on +his scalp. Devore was one of the few city editors I have ever seen who +used that tool which all of them are popularly supposed to handle so +murderously--a blue pencil. And as he had a habit, when he was flustered +or annoyed--and that was most of the time--of scratching his head with +the point end of it, his forehead under the hair roots was usually +streaked with purplish-blue tracings, like a fly-catcher's egg. + +The voice, which had a deep and space-filling quality to it, continued +to come through and over the partition that divided off our cubby-hole +of a workroom--called a city room by courtesy--from the space where +certain other members of the staff had their desks. I got up from my +place and stepped over to where the thin wall ended in a doorway, being +minded to have a look at the speaker. The voice sounded as though it +must belong to a big man with a barrel-organ chest. I was surprised to +find that it didn't. + +Its owner was sitting in a chair in the middle of a little space +cluttered up with discarded exchanges and galley proofs. He was rather a +small man, short but compact. He had his hat off and his hair, which was +thin but fine as silk floss, was combed back over his ears and sprayed +out behind in a sort of mane effect. It had been red hair once, but was +now so thickly streaked with white that it had become a faded brindle +color. I took notice of this first because his back was toward me; in a +second or two he turned his head sideways and I saw that he had exactly +the face to match the hair. It was a round, plump, elderly face, with a +short nose, delicately pink at the tip. The eyes were a pale blue, and +just under the lower lip, which protruded slightly, was a small gray-red +goatee, sticking straight out from a cleft in the chin like a dab of a +sandy sheep's wool. Also, as the speaker swung himself further round, I +took note of a shirt of plaited white linen billowing out over his chest +and ending at the top in a starchy yet rumply collar that rolled +majestically and Byronically clear up under his ears. Under the collar +was loosely knotted a black-silk tie such as sailors wear. His vest was +unbuttoned, all except the two lowermost buttons, and the sleeves of +his coat were turned back neatly off his wrists. This, though, could +not have been on account of the heat, because the weather wasn't very +hot yet. I learned later that, winter or summer, he always kept his coat +sleeves turned back and the upper buttons of his vest unfastened. His +hands were small and plump, and his feet were small too and daintily +shod in low, square-toed shoes. About the whole man there was an air +somehow of full-bloomed foppishness gone to tassel--as though having +been a dandy once, he was now merely neat and precise in his way of +dress. + +He was talking along with the death of Albert Sidney Johnston for his +subject, not seeming to notice that his audience wasn't deeply +interested. He had, it seemed, a way of stating a proposition as a fact, +as an indisputable, everlasting, eternal fact, an immutable thing. It +became immutable through his way of stating it. Then he would frame it +in the form of a question and ask it. Then he would answer it himself +and go right ahead. + +Boynton, the managing editor, was coiled up at his desk, wearing a look +of patient endurance on his face. Harty, the telegraph editor, was +trying to do his work--trying, I say, because the orator was booming +away like a bittern within three feet of him and Harty plainly was +pestered and fretful. Really the only person in sight who seemed +entertained was Sidley, the exchange editor, a young man with hair that +had turned white before its time and in his eye the devil-driven look of +a man who drinks hard, not because he wants to drink but because he +can't help drinking. Sidley, as I was to find out later, had less cause +to care for the old man than anybody about the shop, for he used to +disarrange Sidley's neatly piled exchanges, pawing through them for his +favorite papers. But Sidley could forget his own grievances in watchful +enjoyment of the dumb sufferings of Harty, whom he hated, as I came to +know, with the blind hate a dipsomaniac often has for any mild and +perfectly harmless individual. + +As I stood there taking in the picture, the speaker, sensing a +stranger's presence, faced clear about and saw me. He nodded with a +grave courtesy, and then paused a moment as though expecting that one of +the others would introduce us. None of the others did introduce us +though, so he went ahead talking about Albert Sidney Johnston's death, +and I turned away. I stopped by Devore's desk. + +"Who is he?" I asked. + +"That," he said, with a kind of leashed and restrained ferocity in his +voice, "is Major Putnam P. Stone--and the P stands for Pest, which is +his middle name--late of the Southern Confederacy." + +"Picturesque-looking old fellow, isn't he?" I said. + +"Picturesque old nuisance," he said, and jabbed at his scalp with his +pencil as though he meant to puncture his skull. "Wait until you've been +here a few weeks and you'll have another name for him." + +"Well, anyway, he's got a good carrying voice," I said, rather at a loss +to understand Devore's bitterness. + +"Great," he mocked venomously; "you can hear it a mile. I hear it in my +sleep. So will you when you get to know him, the old bore!" + +In due time I did get to know Major Stone well. He was dignified, +tiresome, conversational, gentle mannered and, I think, rather lonely. +By driblets, a scrap here and a scrap there, I learned something about +his private life. He came from the extreme eastern end of the state. He +belonged to an old family. His grandfather--or maybe it was his +great-grand-uncle--had been one of the first United States senators that +went to Washington after our state was admitted into the Union. He had +never married. He had no business or profession. From some property or +other he drew an income, small, but enough to keep him in a sort of +simple and genteel poverty. He belonged to the best club in town and the +most exclusive, the Shawnee Club, and he had served four years in the +Confederate army. That last was the one big thing in his life. To the +major's conceptions everything that happened before 1861 had been of a +preparatory nature, leading up to and paving the way for the main +event; and what had happened since 1865 was of no consequence, except in +so far as it reflected the effects of the Civil War. + +Daily, as methodically as a milkwagon horse, he covered the same route. +First he sat in the reading room of the old Gaunt House, where by an +open fire in winter or by an open window in summer he discussed the +blunders of Braxton Bragg and similar congenial topics with a little +group of aging, fading, testy veterans. On his way to the Shawnee Club +he would come by the Evening Press office and stay an hour, or two +hours, or three hours, to go away finally with a couple of favored +exchanges tucked under his arm, and leave us with our ears still dinned +and tingling. Once in a while of a night, passing the Gaunt House on my +way to the boarding house where I lived--for four dollars a week--I +would see him through the windows, sometimes sitting alone, sometimes +with one of his cronies. + +Round the office he sometimes bothered us and sometimes he interfered +with our work; but mainly all the men on the staff liked him, I think, +or at least we put up with him. In our home town each of us had known +somebody very much like him--there used to be at least one Major Stone +in every community in the South, although most of them are dead now, I +guess--so we all could understand him. When I say all I mean all but +Devore. The major's mere presence would poison Devore's whole day for +him. The major's blaring notes would cross-cut Devore's nerves as with a +dull and haggling saw. He--Devore I mean--disliked the major with a +dislike almost too deep for words. It had got to be an obsession with +him. + +"You fellows that were born down here have to stand for him," he said +once, when the major had stumped out on his short legs after an +unusually long visit. "It's part of the penalty you pay for belonging in +this country. But I don't have to venerate him and fuss over him and +listen to him. I'm a Yankee, thank the Lord!" Devore came from Michigan +and had worked on papers in Cleveland and Detroit before he drifted +South. "Oh, we've got his counterpart up my way," he went on. "Up there +he'd be a pension-grabbing old kicker, ready to have a fit any time +anybody wearing a gray uniform got within ninety miles of him, and +writing red-hot letters of protest to the newspapers every time the +state authorities sent a captured battle flag back down South. Down here +he's a pompous, noisy old fraud, too proud to work for a living--or too +lazy--and too poor to count for anything in this world. The difference +is that up in my country we've squelched the breed--we got good and +tired of these professional Bloody Shirt wavers a good while ago; but +here you fuss over this man, and you'll sit round and pretend to listen +while he drools away about things that happened before any one of you +was born. Do you fellows know what I've found out about your Major +Putnam Stone? He's a life member of the Shawnee Club--a life member, +mind you! And here I've been living in this town over a year, and nobody +ever so much as invited me inside its front door!" + +All of which was, perhaps, true, even though Devore had an unnecessarily +harsh way of stating the case; the part about the Shawnee Club was true, +at any rate, and I used to think it possibly had something to do with +Devore's feelings for Major Stone. Not that Devore gave open utterance +to his feelings to the major's face. To the major he was always silently +polite, with a little edging of ice on his politeness; he saved up his +spleen to spew it out behind the old fellow's back. Farther than that he +couldn't well afford to go anyhow. The Chief, owner of the paper and its +editor, was the major's friend. As for the major himself, he seemed +never to notice Devore's attitude. For a fact, I believe he actually +felt a sort of pity for Devore, seeing that Devore had been born in the +North. Not to have been born in the South was, from the major's way of +looking at the thing, a great and regrettable misfortune for which the +victim could not be held responsible, since the fault lay with his +parents and not with him. By way of a suitable return for this, Devore +spent many a spare moment thinking up grotesque yet wickedly +appropriate nicknames for the major. He called him Old First and Second +Manassas and Old Hardee's Tactics and Old Valley of Virginia. He called +him an old bluffer too. + +He was wrong there, though, certainly. Though the major talked pretty +exclusively about the war, I took notice that he rarely talked about the +part he himself had played in it. Indeed, he rarely discussed anybody +below the rank of brigadier. The errors of Hood's campaign concerned him +more deeply than the personal performances of any individual. Campaigns +you might say were his specialty, campaigns and strategy. About such +things as these he could talk for hours--and he did. + +I've known other men--plenty of them--not nearly so well educated as the +major, who could tell you tales of the war that would make you see +it--yes, and smell it too--the smoke of the campfires, the unutterable +fatigue of forced marches when the men, with their tongues lolling out +of their mouths like dogs, staggered along, panting like dogs; the +bloody prints of unshod feet on flinty, frozen clods; the shock and +fearful joy of the fighting; the shamed numbness of retreats; artillery +horses, their hides all blood-boltered and their tails clubbed and +clotted with mire, lying dead with stiff legs between overturned guns; +dead men piled in heaps and living men huddled in panics--all of it. But +when the major talked I saw only some serious-minded officers, in +whiskers of an obsolete cut and queer-looking shirt collars, poring over +maps round a table in a farmhouse parlor. When he chewed on the cud of +the vanished past it certainly was mighty dry chewing. + +There came a day, a few weeks after I went to work for the Evening +Press, when for once anyway the major didn't seem to have anything to +say. It was in the middle of a blistering, smothering hot forenoon in +early June, muggy and still and close, when a fellow breathing felt as +though he had his nose buried in layers of damp cotton waste. The city +room was a place fit to addle eggs, and from the composing room at the +back the stenches of melting metals and stale machine oils came rolling +in to us in nasty waves. With his face glistening through the trickling +sweat, the major came in about ten o'clock, fanning himself with his +hat, and when he spoke his greeting the booming note seemed all melted +and gone out of his voice. He went through the city room into the room +behind the partition, and passing through a minute later I saw him +sitting there with one of Sidley's exchanges unfolded across his knee, +but he wasn't reading it. Presently I saw him climbing laboriously up +the stairs to the second floor where the chief had his office. At +quitting time that afternoon I dropped into the place on the corner for +a beer, and I was drinking it, as close to an electric fan as I could +get, when Devore came in and made for where I was standing. I asked him +to have something. + +"I'll take the same," he said to the man behind the bar, and then to me +with a kind of explosive snap: "By George, I'm in a good mind to resign +this rotten job!" That didn't startle me. I had been in the business +long enough to know that the average newspaper man is forever +threatening to resign. Most of them--to hear them talk--are always just +on the point of throwing up their jobs and buying a good-paying country +weekly somewhere and taking things easy for the rest of their lives, or +else they're going into magazine work. Only they hardly ever do it. So +Devore's threat didn't jar me much. I'd heard it too often. + +"What's the trouble?" I asked. "Heat getting on your nerves?" + +"No, it's not the heat," he said peevishly; "it's worse than the heat. +Do you know what's happened? The chief has saddled Old Signal Corps on +me. Yes, sir, I've got to take his old pet, the major, on the city +staff. It seems he's succeeded in losing what little property he +had--the chief told me some rigmarole about sudden financial +reverses--and now he's down and out. So I'm elected. I've got to take +him on as a reporter--a cub reporter sixty-odd years old, mind you, who +hasn't heard of anything worth while since Robert E. Lee surrendered!" + +The pathos of the situation--if you could call it that--hit me with a +jolt; but it hadn't hit Devore, that was plain. He saw only the annoying +part of it. + +"What's he going to do?" I asked--"assignments, or cover a route like +the district men?" + +"Lord knows," said Devore. "Because the old bore knows a lot of big +people in this town and is friendly with all the old-timers in the +state, the chief has a wild delusion that he can pick up a lot of stuff +that an ordinary reporter wouldn't get. Rats! + +"Come on, let's take another beer," he said, and then he added: "Well, +I'll just make you two predictions. He'll be a total loss as a +reporter--that's one prediction; and the other is that he'll have a hard +time buying his provender and his toddies over at the Shawnee Club on +the salary he'll draw down from the Evening Press." + +Devore was not such a very great city editor, as I know now in the light +of fuller experience, but I must say that as a prophet he was fairly +accurate. The major did have a hard time living on his salary--it was +twelve a week, I learned--and as a reporter he certainly was not what +you would call a dazzling success. He came on for duty at eight the next +morning, the same as the rest of us, and sorry as I felt for him I had +to laugh. He had bought himself a leather-backed notebook as big as a +young ledger, just as a green kid just out of high school would have +done, and he had a long, new, shiny, freshly sharpened lead pencil +sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat. He tried to come in +smartly with a businesslike air, but it wouldn't have fooled a blind +man, because he was as nervous as a debutante. It struck me as one of +the funniest things--and one of the most pathetic--I had ever seen. + +I'll say this for Devore--he tried out the major on nearly every kind of +job; and surely it wasn't Devore's fault that the major failed on every +single one of them. His first attempt was as typical a failure as any of +them. That first morning Devore assigned him to cover a wedding at high +noon, high noon being the phrase we always used for a wedding that took +place round twelve o'clock in the day. The daughter of one of the +wealthiest merchants in the town, and also one of our largest +advertisers, was going to be married to the first deputy cotillion +leader of the German Club, or something of that nature. Anyhow the groom +was what is known as prominent in society, and the chief wanted a spread +made of it. Devore sent the major out to cover the wedding, and when he +came back told him to write about half a column. + +He wrote half a column before he mentioned the bride's name. He started +off with an eight-line quotation from Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake, +and then he went into a long, flowery dissertation on the sacred rite or +ceremony of matrimony, proving conclusively and beyond the peradventure +of a doubt that it was handed down to us from remote antiquity. And he +forgot altogether to tell the minister's name, and he got the groom's +middle initial wrong--he was the kind of groom who would make a fuss +over a wrong middle initial, too--and along toward the end of his story +he devoted about three closely-written pages to the military history of +the young woman's father. It seems that her parent had served with +distinction as colonel of a North Carolina regiment. And he wound up +with a fancy flourish and handed it in. I know all these details of his +story, because it fell to me to rewrite it. + +Devore didn't say a word when the old major reverently laid that armload +of copy down in front of him. He just sat and waited in silence until +the major had gone out to get a bite to eat, and then he undertook to +edit it. But there wasn't any way to edit it, except to throw it away. I +suppose that kind of literature went very well indeed back along about +1850; I remember having read such accounts in the back files of old +weeklies, printed before the war. But we were getting out a live, snappy +paper. Devore tried to pattern the local side after the New York and +Chicago models. As yet we hadn't reached the point where we spoke of any +white woman without the prefix Mrs. or Miss before her name, but we were +up-to-date in a good many other particulars. Why, it was even against +the office rule to run "beauty and chivalry" into a story when +describing a mixed assemblage of men and women; and when a Southern +newspaper bars out that ancient and honorable standby among phrases it +is a sign that the old order has changed. + +For ten minutes or so Devore, cursing softly to himself, cut and chopped +and gutted his way through the major's introduction, and between +slashing strokes made a war map of the Balkans in his scalp with his +blue pencil. Then he lost patience altogether. + +"Here," he said to me, "you're not doing anything, are you? Well, take +this awful bunch of mushy slush and read it through, and then try to +make a decent half-column story out of it. And rush it over a page at a +time, will you? We've got to hustle to catch the three o'clock edition +with it." + +Long before three o'clock the major was back in the shop, waiting for +the first run of papers to come off the press. Furtively I watched him +as he hunted through the sticky pages to find his first story. I guess +he had the budding pride of authorship in him, just as all the rest of +us have it in us. But he didn't find his story, he found mine. He didn't +say anything, but he looked crushed and forlorn as he got up and went +away. It was like him not to ask for any explanations, and it was like +Devore not to offer him any. + +So it went. Even if he had grown up in the business I doubt whether +Major Putnam Stone would ever have made a newspaper man; and now he was +too far along in life to pick up even the rudiments of the trade. He +didn't have any more idea of news values than a rabbit. He had the most +amazing faculty for overlooking what was vital in the news, but he could +always be depended upon to pick out some trivial and inconsequential +detail and dress it up with about half a yard of old-point lace +adjectives. He never by any chance used a short word if he could dig up +a long, hard one, and he never seemed to be able to start a story +without a quotation from one of the poets. It never was a modern poet +either. Excepting for Sidney Lanier and Father Ryan, apparently he +hadn't heard of any poet worth while since Edgar Allan Poe died. And +everything that happened seemed to remind him--at great length--of +something else that had happened between 1861 and 1865. When it came to +lugging the Civil War into a tale, he was as bad as that character in +one of Dickens' novels who couldn't keep the head of King Charles the +First out of his literary productions. With that reared-back, +flat-heeled, stiff-spined gait of his, he would go rummaging round the +hotels and the Shawnee Club, meeting all sorts of people and hearing all +sorts of things that a real reporter would have snatched at like a +hungry dog snatching at a T-bone, and then he would remember that it +was the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, or +something, and, forgetting everything else, would come bulging and +bustling back to the office, all worked up over the prospect of writing +two or three columns about that. He just simply couldn't get the +viewpoint; yet I think he tried hard enough. I guess the man who said +you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks had particular reference to an +old war dog. + +I remember mighty well one incident that illustrates the point I am +trying to make. We had a Sunday edition. We were rather vain of our +Sunday edition. It carried a colored comic supplement and a section full +of special features, and we all took a more or less righteous pride in +it and tried hard to make it alive and attractive. We didn't always +succeed, but we tried all right. One Saturday night we put the Sunday to +bed, and about one o'clock, when the last form was locked, three or four +of us dropped into Tony's place at the corner for a bite to eat and a +drink. We hadn't been there very long when in came the old major, and at +my invitation he joined us at one of Tony's little round tables at the +back of the place. As a general thing the major didn't patronize Tony's. +I had never heard him say so--probably he wouldn't have said it for fear +of hurting our feelings--but I somehow had gathered the impression that +the major believed a gentleman, if he drank at all, should drink at his +club. But it was long after midnight now and the Shawnee Club would be +closed. Ike Webb spoke up presently. + +"It's a pity we couldn't dig up the governor tonight," he said. + +The governor had come down from the state capital about noon, and all +the afternoon and during most of the evening Webb had been trying to +find him. There was a possibility of a big story in the governor if Webb +could have found him. The major, who had been sitting there stirring his +toddy in an absent-minded sort of way, spoke up casually: "I spent an +hour with the governor tonight--at my club. In fact, I supped with him +in one of the private dining rooms." We looked up, startled, but the +major went right along. "Young gentlemen, it may interest you to know +that every time I see our worthy governor I am struck more and more by +his resemblance to General Leonidas Polk, as that gallant soldier and +gentleman looked when I last saw him----" + +Devore, who had been sitting next to the major, with his shoulder half +turned from the old man, swung round sharply and interrupted him. + +"Major," he said, with a thin icy stream of sarcasm trickling through +his words, "did you and the governor by any remote chance discuss +anything so brutally new and fresh as the present political +complications in this state?" + +"Oh, yes," said the major blandly. "We discussed them quite at some +length--or at least the governor did. Personally I do not take a great +interest in these matters, not so great an interest as I should, +perhaps, take. However, I did feel impelled to take issue with him on +one point. Our governor is an honest gentleman--more than that, he was a +brave soldier--but I fear he is mistaken in some of his attitudes. I +regard him as being badly advised. For example, he told me that no +longer ago than this afternoon he affixed his official signature to a +veto of Senator Stickney's measure in regard to the warehouses of our +state----" + +As Devore jumped up he overturned the major's toddy right in the major's +lap. He didn't stop to beg pardon, though; in fact, none of us stopped. +But at the door I threw one glance backward over my shoulder. The major +was still sitting reared back in his chair, with his wasted toddy +seeping all down the front of his billowy shirt, viewing our vanishing +figures with amazement and a mild reproof in his eyes. In the one quick +glance that I took I translated his expression to mean something like +this: + +"Good Heavens, is this any way for a party of gentlemen to break up! +This could never happen at a gentlemen's club." + +It was a foot-race back to the office, and Devore, who had the start, +won by a short length. Luckily the distance was short, not quite half a +block, and the presses hadn't started yet. Working like the crew of a +sinking ship, we snatched the first page form back off the steam table +and pried it open and gouged a double handful of hot slugs out of the +last column--Devore blistered his fingers doing it. A couple of linotype +operators who were on the late trick threw together the stick or two of +copy that Webb and I scribbled off a line at a time. And while we were +doing this Devore framed a triple-deck, black-face head. So we missed +only one mail. + +The first page had a ragged, sloppy look, but anyway we were saved from +being scooped to death on the most important story of the year. The +vetoing of the Stickney Bill vitally affected the tobacco interests, and +they were the biggest interests in the state, and half the people of the +state had been thinking about nothing else and talking about nothing +else for two months--ever since the extra session of the legislature +started. It was well for us too that we did save our faces, because the +opposition sheet had managed to find the governor--he was stopping for +the night at the house of a friend out in the suburbs--and over the +telephone at a late hour he had announced his decision to them. But by +Monday morning the major seemed to have forgotten the whole thing. I +think he had even forgiven Devore for spilling his toddy and not +stopping to apologize. + +As for Devore, he didn't say a word to the major--what would have been +the use? To Devore's credit also I will say that he didn't run to the +chief, bearing complaints of the major's hopeless incompetency. He kept +his tongue between his teeth and his teeth locked; and that must have +been hard on Devore, for he was a flickery, high-tempered man, and +nervous as a cat besides. To my knowledge, the only time he ever broke +out was when we teetotally missed the Castleton divorce story. So far as +the major's part in it was concerned, it was the Stickney veto story all +over again, with variations. The Castletons were almost the richest +people in town, and socially they stood way up. That made the scandal +that had been brewing and steeping and simmering for months all the +bigger when finally it came to a boil. When young Buford Castleton got +his eyes open and became aware of what everybody else had known for a +year or more, and when the rival evening paper came out in its last +edition with the full particulars, we, over in the Evening Press shop, +were plastered with shame, for we didn't have a line of it. + +A stranger dropping in just about that time would have been justified in +thinking there was a corpse laid out in the plant somewhere, and that +all the members of the city staff were sitting up with the remains. As +luck would have it, it wasn't a stranger that dropped in on our grand +lodge of sorrow. It was Major Putnam Stone, and as he entered the door +he caught the tag end of what one of us was saying. + +"I gather," he said in that large round voice of his, "that you young +gentlemen are discussing the unhappy affair which, I note, is mentioned +with such signally poor taste in the columns of our sensational +contemporary. I may state that I knew of this contemplated divorce +action yesterday. Mr. Buford Castleton, Senior, was my informant." + +"What!" Devore almost yelled it. He had the love of a true city editor +for his paper, and the love of a mother for her child or a miser for his +gold is no greater love than that, let me tell you. "You knew about this +thing here?" He beat with two fingers that danced like the prongs of a +tuning fork on the paper spread out in front of him. "You knew it +yesterday?" + +"Certainly," said the major. "The elder Mr. Castleton bared the truly +distressing details to me at the Shawnee Club." + +"In confidence though--he told you about it in confidence, didn't he, +major?" said Ike Webb, trying to save the old fellow. + +But the major besottedly wouldn't be saved. + +"Absolutely not," he said. "There were several of us present, at least +three other gentlemen whose names I cannot now recall. Mr. Castleton +made the disclosure as though he wished it to be known among his +friends and his son's friends. It was quite evident to all of us that he +was entirely out of sympathy with the lady who is his daughter-in-law." + +Devore forced himself to be calm. It was almost as though he sat on +himself to hold himself down in his chair; but when he spoke his voice +ran up and down the scales quiveringly. + +"Major," he said, "don't you think it would be a good idea if you would +admit that the Southern Confederacy was defeated, and turned your +attention to a few things that have occurred subsequently? Why didn't +you write this story? Why didn't you tell me, so that I could write it? +Why didn't----Oh, what's the use!" + +The major straightened himself up. + +"Sir," he said, "allow me to correct you in regard to a plain +misstatement of fact. Sir, the Southern Confederacy was never defeated. +It ceased to exist as a nation because we were exhausted--because our +devastated country was exhausted. Another thing, sir, I am employed upon +this paper, I gainsay you, as a reporter, not as a scandal monger. I +would be the last to give circulation in the public prints to another +gentleman's domestic unhappiness. I regard it as highly improper that a +gentleman's private affairs should be aired in a newspaper under any +circumstances." + +And with that he bowed and turned on his heel and went out, leaving +Devore shaking all over with the superhuman task of trying to hold +himself in. About ten minutes later, when I came out bound for my +boarding house, the major was standing at the front door. He looped one +of his absurdly small fingers into one of my buttonholes. + +"Our city editor means well, no doubt," he said, "but he doesn't +understand, he doesn't appreciate our conceptions of these matters. He +was born on the other side of the river, you know," he said as though +that explained everything. Then his tone changed and anxiety crept into +it. "Do you think that I went too far? Do you think I ought to return to +him and apologize to him for the somewhat hasty and abrupt manner of +speech I used just now?" + +I told him no--I didn't know what might happen if he went back in there +then--and I persuaded him that Devore didn't expect any apology; and +with that he seemed better satisfied and walked off. As I stood there +watching him, his stiff old back growing smaller as he went away from +me, I didn't know which I blamed the more, Devore for his malignant, +cold disdain of the major, or the major for his blatant stupidity. And +right then and there, all of a sudden, there came to me an understanding +of a thing that had been puzzling me all these weeks. Often I had +wondered how the major had endured Devore's contempt. I had decided in +my own mind that he must be blind to it, else he would have shown +resentment. But now I knew the answer. The major wasn't blind, he was +afraid; as the saying goes, he was afraid of his job. He needed it; he +needed the little scrap of money it brought him every Saturday night. +That was it, I knew now. + +Knowing it made me sorrier than ever for the old man. Dimly I began to +realize, I think, what his own mental attitude toward his position must +be. Here he was, a mere cub reporter--and a remarkably bad one, a proven +failure--skirmishing round for small, inconsequential items, running +errands really, at an age when most of the men he knew were getting +ready to retire from business. Yet he didn't dare quit. He didn't dare +even to rebel against the slights of the man over him, because he needed +that twelve dollars a week. It was all, no doubt, that stood between him +and actual want. His pride was bleeding to death internally. On top of +all that he was being forced into a readjustment of his whole scheme of +things, at a time of life when its ordered routine was almost as much a +part of him as his hands and feet. As I figured it, he had long before +adjusted his life to his income, cunningly fitting in certain small +luxuries and all the small comforts; and now this income was cut to a +third or a quarter perhaps of its former dimensions. It seemed a pretty +hard thing for the major. It was fierce. + +Perhaps my vision was clouded by my sympathy, but I thought Major Stone +aged visibly that summer. Maybe you have noticed how it is with men who +have gone along, hale and stanch, until they reach a certain age. When +they do start to break they break fast. He lost some of his flesh and +most of his rosiness. The skin on his face loosened a little and became +a tallowy yellowish-red, somewhat like a winter-killed apple. + +His wardrobe suffered. One day one of his short little shoes was split +across the top just back of the toe cap, and the next morning it was +patched. Pretty soon the other shoe followed suit--first a crack in the +leather, then a clumsy patch over the crack. He wore his black slouch +hat until it was as green in spots as a gage plum; and late in August he +supplanted it with one of those cheap, varnished brown-straw hats that +cost about thirty-five cents apiece and look it. + +His linen must have been one of his small extravagances. Those +majestically collared garments with the tremendous plaited bosoms and +the hand worked eyelets, where the three big flat gold studs went in, +never came ready made from any shop. They must have been built to his +measure and his order. Now he wore them until there were gaped places +between the plaits where the fine, fragile linen had ripped lengthwise, +and the collars were frayed down and broken across and caved in limply. +Finally he gave them up too, and one morning came to work wearing a +flimsy, sleazy, negligee shirt. I reckon you know the kind of shirt I +mean--always it fits badly, and the sleeves are always short and the +bosom is skimpy, and the color design is like bad wall-paper. After his +old full-bosomed grandeur this shirt, with a ten-cent collar buttoned on +to it and overriding the neckband, and gaping away in the front so that +the major's throat showed, seemed to typify more than anything else the +days upon which he had fallen. About this time I thought his voice took +on a changed tone permanently. It was still hollow, but it no longer +rang. + +A good many men similarly placed would have taken to drink, but Major +Putnam Stone plainly was never born to be a drunkard and hard times +couldn't make one of him. With a sort of gentle, stupid persistence he +hung fast to his poor job, blundering through some way, struggling +constantly to learn the first easy tricks of the trade--the a, b, c's of +it--and never succeeding. He still lugged the classical poets and the +war into every story he tried to write, and day after day Devore +maintained his policy of eloquent brutal silence, refusing dumbly to +accept the major's clumsy placating attempts to get upon a better +footing with him. After that once he had never attempted to scold the +old man, but he would watch the major pottering round the city room, +and he would chew on his under lip and viciously lance his scalp with +his pencil point. + +Well, aside from the major, Devore had his troubles that summer. That +was the summer of the biggest, bitterest campaign that the state had +seen, so old-timers said, since Breckinridge ran against Douglas and +both of them against Lincoln. If you have ever lived in the South, +probably you know something of political fights that will divide a state +into two armed camps, getting hotter and hotter until old slumbering +animosities come crawling out into the open, like poison snakes from +under a rock, and new lively ones hatch from the shell every hour or so +in a multiplying adder brood. + +This was like that, only worse. Stripped of a lot of embroidery in the +shape of side issues and local complications, it resolved itself in a +last-ditch, last-stand, back-to-the-wall fight of the old regime of the +party against the new. On one side were the oldsters, bearers of famous +names some of them, who had learned politics as a trade and followed it +as a profession. Almost to a man they were professional office holders, +professional handshakers, professional silver tongues. And against them +were pitted a greedy, hungry group of younger men, less showy perhaps in +their persons, less picturesque in their manner of speech, but filled +each one with a great yearning for office and power; and they brought to +the aid of their vaulting ambitions a new and a faultlessly running +machine. From the outset the Evening Press had championed the cause of +the old crowd--the state-house ring as the enemy called it, when they +didn't call it something worse. We championed it not as a Northern or an +Eastern paper might, in a sedate, half-hearted way, but fiercely and +wholly and blindly--so blindly that we could see nothing in our own +faction but what was good and high and pure, nothing in the other but +what was smutted with evil intent. In daily double-leaded editorial +columns the chief preached a Holy War, and in the local pages we fought +the foe tooth and nail, biting and gouging and clawing, and they gouged +and clawed back at us like catamounts. That was where the hard work fell +upon Devore. He had to keep half his scanty staff working on politics +while the other half tried to cover the run of the news. + +If I live to be a thousand years old I am not going to forget the state +convention that began at two o'clock that muggy September afternoon at +Lyric Hall up on Washington Street in the old part of the town. Once +upon a time, twenty or thirty years before, Lyric Hall had been the +biggest theater in town. The stage was still there and the boxes, and at +the back there were miles--they seemed miles anyway--of ancient, +crumbling, dauby scenery stacked up and smelling of age and decay. Booth +and Barrett had played there, and Fanny Davenport and Billy Florence. +Now, having fallen from its high estate, it served altered +purposes--conventions were held at Lyric Hall and cheap masquerade balls +and the like. + +The press tables that had been provided were not, strictly speaking, +press tables at all. They were ordinary unpainted kitchen tables, ranged +two on one side and two on the other side at the front of the stage, +close up to the old gas-tipped footlights; and when we came in by the +back way that afternoon and found our appointed places I was struck by +certain sinister facts. Usually women flocked to a state convention. By +rights there should have been ladies in the boxes and in the balcony. +Now there wasn't a woman in sight anywhere, only men, row after row of +them. And there wasn't any cheering, or mighty little of it. When I tell +you the band played Dixie all the way through with only a stray whoop +now and then, you will understand better the temper of that crowd. + +The situation, you see, was like this: One side had carried the mountain +end of the state; the other had carried the lowlands. One side had swept +the city; that meant a solid block of more than a hundred delegates. The +other side had won the small towns and the inland counties. So it stood +lowlander against highlander, city man against country man, and the +bitter waters of those ancient feuds have their wellsprings back a +thousand years in history, they tell me. One side led slenderly on +instructed vote. The other side had enough contesting delegations on +hand to upset the result if these contestants or any considerable +proportion of them should be recognized in the preliminary organization. + +One side held a majority of the delegates who sat upon the floor; the +other side had packed the balcony and the aisles and the corners with +its armed partizans. One side was in the saddle and determined; the +other afoot and grimly desperate. And it was our side, as I shall call +it, meaning by that the state-house ring, that for the moment had the +whiphand; and it was the other side, led in person by State Senator +Stickney, god of the new machine, that stood ready to wade hip deep +through trouble to unhorse us. + +Just below me, stretching across the hall from side to side in favored +front places, sat the city delegates--Stickney men all of them. And as +my eye swept the curved double row of faces it seemed to me I saw there +every man in town with a reputation as a gun-fighter or a knife-fighter +or a fist-fighter; and every one of them wore, pinning his delegate's +badge to his breast, a Stickney button that was round and bright red, +like a clot of blood on his shirt front. + +They made a contrast, these half-moon lines of blocky men, to the lank, +slouch-hatted, low-collared country delegates--farmers, school +teachers, country doctors and country lawyers--who filled the seats +behind them and on beyond them. To the one group politics was a business +in which there was money to be made and excitement to be had; to the +other group it was a passion, veritably a sacredly high and serious +thing, which they took as they did their religion, with a solemn, +intolerant, Calvinistic sincerity. There was one thing, though, they all +shared in common. Whether a man's coat was of black alpaca or striped +flannel, the right-hand pocket sagged under the weight of unseen +ironmongery; or if the coat pocket didn't sag there was a bulging clump +back under the skirts on the right hip. For all the heat, hardly a man +there was in his shirtsleeves; and it would have been funny to watch how +carefully this man or that eased himself down into his seat, favoring +his flanks against the pressure of his hardware--that is to say, it +would have been funny if it all hadn't been so deadly earnest. + +You could fairly smell trouble cooking in that hall. In any corner +almost there were the potential makings of half a dozen prominent +funerals. There was scarce a man, I judged, but nursed a private grudge +against some other man; and then besides these there was the big issue +itself, which had split the state apart lengthwise as a butcher's +cleaver splits a joint. Looking out over that convention, you could +read danger spelled out everywhere, in everything, as plain as print. + +I was where I could read it with particular and uncomfortable +distinctness, too, for I had the second place at the table that had been +assigned to the Evening Press crew. There were four of us in +all--Devore, who had elected to be in direct charge of the detail; Ike +Webb, our star man, who was to handle the main story; I who was to write +the running account--and, fourthly and lastly, Major Putnam Stone. The +major hadn't been included in the assignment originally, but little +Pinky Gilfoil had turned up sick that morning, and the chief decided the +major should come along with us in Gilfoil's place. The chief had a +deluded notion that the major could circulate on a roving commission and +pick up spicy scraps of gossip. But here, for this once anyway, was a +convention wherein there were no spicy bits of gossip to be picked +up--curse words, yes, and cold-chilled fighting words, but not +gossip--everything focused and was summed up in the one main point: +Should the majority rule the machine or should the machine rule the +majority? So the major sat there at the far inside corner of the table +doing nothing at all--Devore saw to that--and was rather in the way. For +the time I forgot all about him. + +The clash wasn't long in coming. It came on the first roll call of the +counties. Later we found out that the Stickney forces had been +counting, all along, on throwing the convention into a disorder of such +proportions as to force an adjournment, trusting then to their +acknowledged superiority at organization to win some strong strategic +advantage in the intervening gap of time. Failing there they meant to +raise a cry of unfairness and walk out. That then was their +program--first the riot and then, as a last resort, the bolt. But they +had men in their ranks, high-tempered men who, like so many skittish +colts, wouldn't stand without hitching. The signals crossed and the +thunder cracked across that calm-before-the-storm situation before there +was proper color of excuse either for attack or for retreat. + +It came with scarcely any warning at all. Old Judge Marcellus Barbee, +the state chairman, called the convention to order, he standing at a +little table in the center of the stage. Although counted as our man, +the judge was of such uncertain fiber as to render it doubtful whose man +he really was. He was a kindly, wind-blown old gentleman, who very much +against his will had been drawn unawares, as it were, into the middle of +this fight, and he was bewildered by it all--and not only bewildered but +unhappy and frightened. His gavel seemed to quaver its raps out +timorously. + +A pastor of one of the churches, a reverend man with a bleak, worried +face, prayed the Good Lord that peace and good-will and wise counsel +might rule these deliberations, and then fled away as though fearing the +mocking echoes of his own Amen. Summoning his skulking voice out of his +lower throat, Judge Barbee bade the secretary of the state committee +call the counties. The secretary got as far as Blanton, the third county +alphabetically down the list. And Blanton was one of the contested +counties. So up rose two rival chairmen of delegations, each waving +aloft his credentials, each demanding the right to cast the vote of free +and sovereign Blanton, each shaking a clenched fist at the other. Up got +the rival delegations from Blanton. Up got everybody. Judge Barbee, with +a gesture, recognized the rights of the anti-Stickney delegation. Jeers +and yells broke out, spattering forth like a skirmish fire, then almost +instantly were merged into a vast, ominous roar. Chairs began to +overturn. Not twenty feet from me the clattering of the chairman's +gavel, as he vainly beat for order, sounded like the clicking of a +telegraph instrument in a cyclone. + +I saw the sergeant-at-arms--who was our man too--start down the middle +aisle and saw him trip over a hostile leg and stumble and fall, and I +saw a big mountaineer drop right on top of him, pinning him flat to the +floor. I saw the musicians inside the orchestra rail, almost under my +feet, scuttling away in two directions like a divided covey of gorgeous +blue and red birds. I saw the snare drummer, a little round German, put +his foot through the skin roof of his own drum. I saw Judge Barbee +overturn the white china pitcher of ice water that sweated on the table +at his elbow, and as the cold stream of its contents spattered down the +legs of his trousers saw him staring downward, contemplating his +drenched limbs as though that mattered greatly. + +All in a flash I saw these things, and in that same flash I saw, taking +shape and impulse, a groundswell of men, all wearing red buttons, +rolling toward the stage, with the picked bad men of the city wards for +its crest; and out of the tail of my eye I saw too, stealing out from +the rear of the stage, a small, compact wedge of men wearing those same +red buttons; and the prow of the wedge was Fighting Dave Dancy, the +official bad man of a bad county, a man who packed a gun on each hip and +carried a dirk knife down the back of his neck; a man who would shoot +you at the drop of a hat and provide the hat himself--or at least so it +was said of him. + +And I realized that the enemy, coming by concerted agreement from front +and rear at once, had nipped those of us who were upon the stage as +between two closing walls, and I was exceedingly unhappy to be there. I +ducked my head low, waiting for the shooting to begin. Afterward we +figured it out that nobody fired the first shot because everybody knew +the first shot would mean a massacre, where likely enough a man would +kill more friends than foes. + +What happened now in the space of the next few seconds I saw with +particular clarity of vision, because it happened right alongside me and +in part right over me. I recall in especial Mink Satterlee. Mink +Satterlee was one of the worst men in town, and he ran the worst saloon +and prevailed mightily in ward politics. He had been sitting just below +our table in the front row of seats. He was a big-bodied man, +fat-necked, but this day he showed himself quick on his feet as any +toe-dancer. Leading his own forces by a length, he vaulted the orchestra +rail and lit lightly where a scared oboe player had been squatted a +moment before; Mink breasted the gutterlike edging of the footlights and +leaped upward, teetering a moment in space. One of his hands grabbed out +for a purchase and closed on the leg of our table and jerked it almost +from under us. + +At that Devore either lost his head or else indignation made him +reckless. Still half sitting, he kicked out at the wriggling bulk at his +feet, and the toe of his shoe took Mink Satterlee in his chest. It was a +puny enough kick; it didn't even shake Mink Satterlee loose from where +he clung. He gave a bellow and heaved himself up on the stage and, +before any of us could move, grabbed Devore by the throat with his left +hand and jammed him back, face upward, on the table until I thought +Devore's spine would crack. His right hand shot into his coat pocket, +then, quick as a snake, came out again, showing the fat fist armed with +a set of murderously heavy brass knucks, and he bent his arm in a +crooked sickle-like stroke, aiming for Devore's left temple. I've always +been satisfied--and so has Devore--that if the blow had landed true his +skull would have caved in like a puff-ball. Only it never landed. + +Above me a shadow of something hung for the hundredth part of a second, +something white flashed over me and by me, moving downward whizzingly; +something cracked on something; and Mink Satterlee breathed a gentle +little grunt right in Devore's face and then relaxed and slid down on +the floor, lying half under the table and half in the tin trough where +the stubby gas jets of the footlights stood up, with his legs protruding +stiffly out over its edge toward his friends. Subconsciously I noted +that his socks were not mates, one of them being blue and one black; +also that his scalp had a crescent-shaped split place in it just between +and above his half-closed eyes. All this, though, couldn't have taken +one-fifth of the time it has required for me to tell it. It couldn't +have taken more than a brace of seconds, but even so it was time enough +for other things to happen; and I looked back again toward the center of +the stage just as Fighting Dave Dancy seized startled old Judge Barbee +by the middle from behind and flung him aside so roughly that the old +man spun round twice, clutching at nothing, and then sat down very hard, +yards away from where he started spinning. + +Dancy stooped for the gavel, which had fallen from the judge's hand, +being minded, I think, to run the convention awhile in the interest of +his own crowd. But his greedy fingers never closed over its black-walnut +handle, because, facing him, he saw just then what made him freeze solid +where he was. + +Out from behind the Evening Press table and through a scattering huddle +of newspaper reporters, stepping on the balls of his feet as lightly as +a puss-cat, emerged Major Putnam Stone. His sleeves were turned back off +his wrists and his vest flared open. His head was thrust forward so that +the tuft of goatee on his chin stuck straight out ahead of him like a +little burgee in a fair breeze. His face was all a clear, bright, +glowing pink; and in his right hand he held one of the longest cavalry +revolvers that ever was made, I reckon. It had a square-butted ivory +handle, and as I saw that ivory handle I knew what the white thing was +that had flashed by me only a moment before to fell Mink Satterlee so +expeditiously. + +Writing this, I've been trying to think of the one word that would best +describe how Major Putnam Stone looked to me as he advanced on Dave +Dancy. I think now that the proper word is competent, for indeed the old +major did look most competent--the tremendous efficiency he radiated +filled him out and made him seem sundry sizes larger than he really was. +A great emergency acts upon different men as chemical processes act upon +different metals. Some it melts like lead, so that their resolution +softens and runs away from them; and some it hardens to tempered steel. +There was the old major now. Always before this he had seemed to me to +be but pot metal and putty, and here, poised, alert, ready--a +wire-drawn, hard-hammered Damascus blade of a man--all changed and +transformed and glorified, he was coming down on Dave Dancy, finger on +trigger, thumb on hammer, eye on target, dominating the whole scene. + +Ten feet from him he halted and there was nobody between them. Somehow +everybody else halted too, some even giving back a little. Over the edge +of the stage a ring of staring faces, like a high-water mark, showed +where the onward rushing swell of the Stickney city delegates had +checked itself. Seemingly to all at once came the realization that the +destinies of the fight had by the chances of the fight been entrusted to +these two men--to Dancy and the major--and that between them the issue +would be settled one way or the other. + +Still at a half crouch, Dancy's right hand began to steal back under the +skirt of his long black coat. At that the major flung up the muzzle of +his weapon so that it pointed skyward, and he braced his left arm at his +side in the attitude you have seen in the pictures of dueling scenes of +olden times. + +"I am waiting, sir, for you to draw," said the major quite briskly. "I +will shoot it out with you to see whether right or might shall control +this convention." And his heels clicked together like castanets. + +Dancy's right hand kept stealing farther and farther back. And then you +could mark by the change of his skin and by the look out of his eyes how +his courage was clabbering to whey inside him, making his face a milky, +curdled white, the color of a poorly stirred emulsion, and then he +quit--he quit cold--his hand came out again from under his coat tails +and it was an empty hand and wide open. It was from that moment on that +throughout our state Fighting Dave Dancy ceased to be Fighting Dave and +became instead Yaller Dave. + +"Then, sir," said the major, "as you do not seem to care to shoot it out +with me, man to man, you and your friends will kindly withdraw from this +stage and allow the business of this convention to proceed in an orderly +manner." + +And as Dave Dancy started to go somebody laughed. In another second we +were all laughing and the danger was over. When an American crowd +begins laughing the danger is always over. + + * * * * * + +Newspaper men down in that town still talk about the story that Ike Webb +wrote for the last edition of the Evening Press that afternoon. It was a +great story, as Ike Webb told it--how, still sitting on the floor, old +Judge Barbee got his wits back and by word of mouth commissioned the +major a special sergeant-at-arms; how the major privily sent men to +close and lock and hold the doors so that the Stickney people couldn't +get out to bolt, even if they had now been of a mind to do so; how the +convention, catching the spirit of the moment, elected the major its +temporary chairman, and how even after that, for quite a spell, until +some of his friends bethought to remove him, Mink Satterlee slept +peacefully under our press table with his mismated legs bridged across +the tin trough of the footlights. + + * * * * * + +In rapid succession a number of unusual events occurred in the Evening +Press shop the next morning. To begin with, the chief came down early. +He had a few words in private with Devore and went upstairs. When the +major came at eight as usual, Devore was waiting for him at the door of +the city room; and as they went upstairs together, side by side, I saw +Devore's arm steal timidly out and rest a moment on the major's +shoulder. + +The major was the first to descend. Walking unusually erect, even for +him, he bustled into the telephone booth. Jessie, our operator, told us +afterward that he called up a haberdasher, and in a voice that boomed +like a bell ordered fourteen of those plaited-bosom shirts of his, the +same to be made up and delivered as soon as possible. Then he stalked +out. And in a minute or two more Devore came down looking happy and +unhappy and embarrassed and exalted, all of them at once. On his way to +his desk he halted midway of the floor. + +"Gentlemen," he said huskily--"fellows, I mean--I've got an announcement +to make, or rather two announcements. One is this: Right here before you +fellows who heard most of them I want to take back all the mean things I +ever said about him--about Major Stone--and I want to say I'm sorry for +all the mean things I've done to him. I've tried to beg his pardon, but +he wouldn't listen--he wouldn't let me beg his pardon--he--he said +everything was all right. That's one announcement. Here's the other: The +major is going to have a new job with this paper. He's going to leave +the city staff. Hereafter he's going to be upstairs in the room next to +the chief. He's gone out now to pick out his own desk. He's going to +write specials for the Sunday--specials about the war. And he's going +to do it on a decent salary too." + +I judge by my own feelings that we all wanted to cheer, but didn't +because we thought it might sound theatrical and foolish. Anyhow, I know +that was how I felt. So there was a little awkward pause. + +"What's his new title going to be?" asked somebody then. + +"The title is appropriate--I suggested it myself," said Devore. "Major +Stone is going to be war editor." + + + + +V + +SMOKE OF BATTLE + + +This befell during the period that Major Putnam Stone, at the age of +sixty-two, held a job as cub reporter on the Evening Press and worked at +it until his supply of fine linen and the patience of City Editor +Wilbert Devore frazzled out practically together. The episode to which I +would here direct attention came to pass in the middle of a particularly +hot week in the middle of that particularly hot and grubby summer, at a +time when the major was still wearing the last limp survivor of his once +adequate stock of frill-bosomed, roll-collared shirts, and when Devore's +scanty stock of endurance had already worn perilously near the snapping +point. + +As may be recalled, Major Stone lived a life of comparative leisure from +the day he came out of the Confederate army, a seasoned veteran, until +the day he joined the staff of the Evening Press, a rank beginner; and +of these two employments one lay a matter of four decades back in a +half-forgotten past, while the other was of pressing moment, having to +do with Major Stone's enjoyment of his daily bread and other elements of +nutrition regarded as essential to the sustenance of human life. In his +military career he might have been more or less of a success. Certainly +he must have acquitted himself with some measure of personal credit; the +rank he had attained in the service and the standing he had subsequently +enjoyed among his comrades abundantly testified to that. + +As a reporter he was absolutely a total loss; for, as already set forth +in some detail, he was hopelessly old-fashioned in thought and +speech--hopelessly old-fashioned and pedantic in his style of writing; +and since his mind mainly concerned itself with retrospections upon the +things that happened between April, 1861, and May, 1865, he very +naturally--and very frequently--forgot that to a newspaper reporter +every day is a new day and a new beginning, and that yesterday always is +or always should be ancient history, let alone the time-tarnished +yesterdays of forty-odd years ago. Indeed I doubt whether the major ever +comprehended that first commandment of the prentice reporter's +catechism. + +Devore, himself no grand and glittering success as a newspaper man, +nevertheless had mighty little use for the pottering, ponderous old +major. Devore did not believe that bricks could be made without straw. +He considered it a waste of time and raw material to try. Through that +summer he kept the major on the payroll solely because the chief so +willed it. But, though he might not discharge the major, at least he +could bait him--and bait him Devore did--not, mind you, with words, but +with a silent, sublimated contempt more bitter and more biting than any +words. + +So there, on the occasion in question, the situation stood--the major +hanging on tooth and nail to his small job, because he needed most +desperately the twelve dollars a week it brought him; the city editor +regarding him and all his manifold reportorial sins of omission, +commission and remission with a corrosive, speechless venom; and the +rest of us in the city room divided in our sympathies as between those +two. We sympathized with Devore for having to carry so woful an +incompetent upon his small and overworked crew; we sympathized with the +kindly, gentle, tiresome old major for his bungling, vain attempts to +creditably cover the small and piddling assignments that came his way. + +I remember the date mighty well--the third of July. For three days now +the Democratic party, in national convention assembled at Chicago, had +been in the throes of labor. It had been expected--in fact had been as +good as promised--that by ten o'clock that evening the deadlock would +melt before a sweetly gushing freshet of party harmony and the head of +the presidential ticket would be named, wherefore in the Evening Press +shop a late shift had stayed on duty to get out an extra. Back in the +press-room the press was dressed. A front page form was made up and +ready, all but the space where the name of the nominee would be inserted +when the flash came; and in the alley outside a picked squad of +newsboys, renowned for speed of the leg and carrying quality of the +voice, awaited their wares, meanwhile skylarking under the eye of a +circulation manager. + +Besides, there was no telling when an arrest might be made in the +Bullard murder case--that just by itself would provide ample excuse for +an extra. Two days had passed and two nights since the killing of +Attorney-at-Law Rodney G. Bullard, and still the killing, to quote a +favorite line of the local descriptive writers, "remained shrouded in +impenetrable mystery." If the police force, now busily engaged in +running clues into theories and theories into the ground, should by any +blind chance of fortune be lucky enough to ascertain the identity and +lay hands upon the person of Bullard's assassin, the whole town, +regardless of the hour, would rise up out of bed to read the news of it. +It was the biggest crime story that town had known for ten years; one of +the biggest crime stories it had ever known. + +In the end our waiting all went for nothing. There were no developments +at Central Station or elsewhere in the Bullard case, and at Chicago +there was no nomination. At nine-thirty a bulletin came over our leased +wire saying that Tammany, having been beaten before the Resolutions +Committee, was still battling on the floor for its candidate; so that +finally the convention had adjourned until morning, and now the +delegates were streaming out of the hall, too tired to cheer and almost +too tired to jeer--all of which was sad news to us, because it meant +that, instead of taking a holiday on the Fourth, we must work until noon +at least, and very likely until later. Down that way the Fourth was not +observed with quite the firecrackery and skyrockety enthusiasm that +marked its celebration in most of the states to the north of us; +nevertheless, a day off was a day off and we were deeply disgusted at +the turn affairs had taken. It was almost enough to make a fellow feel +friendly toward the Republicans. + +Following the tension there was a snapback; a feeling of languor and +disappointment possessed us. Devore slammed down the lid of his desk and +departed, cursing the luck as he went. Harty, the telegraph editor, and +Wilbur, the telegraph operator, rolled down their shirtsleeves and, +taking their coats over their arms, departed in company for Tony's place +up at the corner, where cool beers were to be found and electric fans, +and a business men's lunch served at all hours. + +That left in the city room four or five men. Sprawled upon battered +chairs and draped over battered desks, they inhaled the smells of rancid +greases that floated in to them from the back of the building; they +coddled their disappointment to keep it warm and they talked shop. When +it comes to talking shop in season and out of season, neither stock +actors nor hospital surgeons are worse offenders than newspaper +reporters--especially young newspaper reporters, as all these men were +except only Major Stone. + +It was inevitable that the talk should turn upon the Bullard murder, and +that the failure of the police force to find the killer or even to find +a likely suspect should be the hinge for its turning. For the moment Ike +Webb had the floor, expounding his own pet theories. Ike was a good +talker--a mighty good reporter too, let me tell you. Across the room +from Ike, tilted back in a chair against the wall, sat the major, +looking shabby and a bit forlorn. For a month now shabbiness had been +seizing on the major, spreading over him like a mildew. It started first +with his shoes, which turned brown and then cracked across the toes, it +extended to his hat, which sagged in its brim and became a moldy green +in its crown, and now it had touched his coat lapels, his waistcoat +front, his collar--his rolling Lord Byron collar--and his sleeve ends. + +The major's harmlessly pompous manner was all gone from him that night. +Of late his self-assurance had seemed to be fraying and frazzling away, +along with those old-timey, full-bosomed shirts of which he had in times +gone by been so tremendously proud. It was as though the passing of the +one marked the passing of the other--symbolic as you might say. +Formerly, too, the major had also excelled mightily in miscellaneous +conversation, dominating it by sheer weight of tediousness. Now he sat +silent while these youngsters with their unthatched lips--born, most of +them, after he reached middle age--babbled the jargon of their trade. He +considered a little ravelly strip along one of his cuffs solicitously. + +Ike Webb was saying this--that the biggest thing in the whole created +world was a big scoop--an exclusive, world-beating, bottled-up scoop of +a scoop. Nothing that could possibly come into a reporter's life was +one-half so big and so glorious and satisfying. He warmed to his theme: + +"Gee! fellows, but wouldn't it be great to get a scoop on a thing like +this Bullard murder! Just suppose now that one of us, all by himself, +found the person who did the shooting and got a full confession from +him, whoever he was; and got the gun that it was done with--got the +whole thing--and then turned it loose all over the front page before +that big stiff of a Chief Gotlieb down at Central Station knew a thing +about it. Beating the police to it would be the best part of that job. +That's the way they do things in New York. In New York it's the +newspapers that do the real work on big murder mysteries, and the police +take their tips from them. Why, some of the best detectives in New York +are reporters. Look what they did in that Guldensuppe case! Look at what +they've done in half a dozen other big cases! Down here we just follow +along, like sheep, behind a bunch of fat-necked cops, taking their +leavings. Up there a paper turns a man loose, with an unlimited expense +account and all the time he needs, and tells him to go to it. That's the +right way too!" + +By that the others knew Ike Webb was thinking of what Vogel had told +him. Vogel was a gifted but admittedly erratic genius from the +metropolis who had come upon us as angels sometimes do--unawares--two +weeks before, with cinders in his ears and the grime of a dusty +right-of-way upon his collar. He had worked for the sheet two weeks and +then, on a Saturday night, had borrowed what sums of small change he +could and under cover of friendly night had moved on to parts unknown, +leaving us dazzled by the careless, somewhat patronizing brilliance of +his manner, and stuffed to our earlobes with tales of the splendid, +adventurous, bohemian lives that newspaper men in New York lived. + +"Well, I know this," put in little Pinky Gilfoil, who was red-headed, +red-freckled and red-tempered: "I'd give my right leg to pull off that +Bullard story as a scoop. No, not my right leg--a reporter needs all the +legs he's got; but I'd give my right arm and throw in an eye for good +measure. It would be the making of a reporter in this town--he'd have +'em all eating out of his hand after that." He licked his lips. Even the +bare thought of the thing tasted pretty good to Pinky. + +"Now you're whistling!" chimed Ike Webb. "The fellow who single-handed +got that tale would have a job on this paper as long as he lived. The +chief would just naturally have to hand him more money. In New York, +though, he'd get a big cash bonus besides, an award they call it up +there. I'd go anywhere and do anything and take any kind of a chance to +land that story as an exclusive--yes, or any other big story." + +To all this the major, it appeared, had been listening, for now he spoke +up in a pretty fair imitation of his old impressive manner: + +"But, young gentlemen--pardon me--do you seriously think--any of +you--that any honorarium, however large, should or could be sufficient +temptation to induce one in your--in our profession--to give utterance +in print to a matter that he had learned, let us say, in confidence? +And suppose also that by printing it he brought suffering or disgrace +upon innocent parties. Unless one felt that he was serving the best ends +of society--unless one, in short, were actuated by the highest of human +motives--could one afford to do such a thing? And, under any +circumstances, could one violate a trust--could one violate the common +obligation of a gentleman's rules of deportment----" + +"Major," broke in Ike Webb earnestly, "the way I look at it, a reporter +can't afford too many of the luxuries you're mentioning. His duty, it +seems to me, is to his paper first and the rest of the world afterward. +His paper ought to be his mother and his father and all his family. If +he gets a big scoop--no matter how he gets it or where he gets it--he +ought to be able to figure out some way of getting it into print. It's +not alone what he owes his paper--it's what he owes himself. Personally +I wouldn't be interested for a minute in bringing the person that killed +Rod Bullard to justice--that's not the point. He was a pretty shady +person--Rod Bullard. By all accounts he got what was coming to him. It's +the story itself that I'd want." + +"Say, listen here, major," put in Pinky Gilfoil, suddenly possessed of a +strengthening argument; "I reckon back yonder in the Civil War, when you +all got the smoke of battle in your noses, you didn't stop to consider +that you were about to make a large crop of widows and orphans and +cause suffering to a whole slue of innocent people that'd never done you +any harm! You didn't stop then, did you? I'll bet you didn't--you just +sailed in! It was your duty--the right thing to do--and you just went +and did it. 'War is hell!' Sherman said. Well, so is newspaper work +hell--in a way. And smelling out a big story ought to be the same to a +reporter that the smoke of battle is to a soldier. That's right--I'll +leave it to any fellow here if that ain't right!" he wound up, +forgetting in his enthusiasm to be grammatical. + +It was an unfortunate simile to be making and Pinky should have known +better, for at Pinky's last words the old major's mild eye widened and, +expanding himself, he brought his chair legs down to the floor with a +thump. + +"Ah, yes!" he said, and his voice took on still more of its old ringing +quality. "Speaking of battles, I am just reminded, young gentlemen, that +tomorrow is the anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg. Though +Northern-born, General Pemberton was a gallant officer--none of our own +Southern leaders was more gallant--but it has always seemed to me that +his defense of Vicksburg was marked by a series of the most lamentable +and disastrous mistakes. If you care to listen, I will explain further." +And he squared himself forward, with one short, plump hand raised, ready +to tick off his points against Pemberton upon his fingers. + +By experience dearly bought at the expense of our ear-drums, the members +of the Evening Press staff knew what that meant; for as you already +know, the major's conversational specialty was the Civil War--it and its +campaigns. Describing it, he made even war a commonplace and a tiresome +topic. In his hands an account of the hardest fought battle became a +tremendously uninteresting thing. He weeded out all the thrills and in +their places planted hedges of dusty, deadly dry statistics. When the +major started on the war it was time to be going. One by one the +youngsters got up and slipped out. Presently the major, booming away +like a bell buoy, became aware that his audience had dwindled. Only Ike +Webb remained, and Ike was getting upon his feet and reaching for the +peg where his coat swung. + +"I'm sorry to leave you right in the middle of your story, major; but, +honestly, I've got to be going," apologized Ike. "Good night, and don't +forget this, major"--Ike had halted at the door--"when a big story comes +your way freeze to it with both hands and slam it across the plate as a +scoop. Do that and you can give 'em all the laugh. Good night again--see +you in the morning, major!" + +He grinned to himself as he turned away. The major was a mighty decent, +tender-hearted little old scout, a gentleman by birth and breeding, +even if he was down and out and dog-poor. It was a shame that Devore +kept him skittering round on little picayunish jobs--running errands, +that was really what it was. Still, at that, the old major was no +reporter and never would be. He wouldn't know a big story if he ran into +it on the big road--it would have to burst right in his face before he +recognized it. And even then the chances were that he wouldn't know what +to do with it. It was enough to make a fellow grin. + +Deserted by the last of his youthful compatriots--which was what he +himself generally called them--the major lingered a moment in heavy +thought. He glanced about the cluttered city room, now suddenly grown +large and empty. This was the theater where his own little drama of +unfitness and failure and private mortification had been staged and +acted. It had run nearly a month now, and a month is a long run for a +small tragedy in a newspaper office or anywhere else. He shook his head. +He shook it as though he were trying to shake it clear of a job lot of +old-fashioned, antiquated ideals--as though he were trying to make room +for newer, more useful, more modern conceptions. Then he settled his +aged and infirm slouch hat more firmly upon his round-domed skull, +straightened his shoulders and stumped out. + +At the second turning up the street from the office an observant +onlooker might have noticed a small, an almost imperceptible change in +the old man's bearing. There was not a sneaky bone in the major's +body--he walked as he thought and as he talked, in straight lines; but +before he turned the corner he glanced up and down the empty sidewalk in +a quick, furtive fashion, and after he had swung into the side street a +trifle of the steam seemed gone from his stiff-spined, hard-heeled gait. +It ceased to be a strut; it became a plod. + +The street he had now entered was a badly lighted street, with long +stretches of murkiness between small patches of gas-lamped brilliance. +By day the houses that walled it would have showed themselves as shabby +and gone to seed--the sort of houses that second cousins move into after +first families have moved out. Two-thirds of the way along the block the +major turned in at a sagged gate. He traversed a short walk of seamed +and decrepit flagging, where tufts of rank grass sprouted between the +fractures in the limestone slabs, and mounted the front porch of a house +that had cheap boarding house written all over it. + +When the major opened the front door the tepid smell that gushed out to +greet him was the smell of a cheap boarding house too, if you know what +I mean--a spilt-kerosene, boiled-cabbage, dust-in-the-corners smell. +Once upon a time the oilcloth upon the floor of the entry way had +exhibited a vivid and violent pattern of green octagons upon a red and +yellow background, but that had been in some far distant day of its +youth and freshness. Now it was worn to a scaly, crumbly color of +nothing at all, and it was frayed into fringes at the door and in places +scuffed clear through, so that the knot-holes of the naked planking +showed like staring eyes. + +Standing just inside the hall, the major glanced down first at the floor +and then up to where in a pendent nub a pinprick of light like a captive +lightning-bug flickered up and down feebly as the air pumped through the +pipe; and out of his chest the major fetched a small sigh. It was a sigh +of resignation, but it had loneliness in it too. Well, it was a +come-down, after all these peaceful and congenial years spent among the +marble-columned, red-plushed glories of the old Gaunt House, to be +living in this place. + +The major had been here now almost a month. Very quietly, almost +secretly, he had come hither when he found that by no amount of +stretching could his pay as a reporter on the Evening Press be made to +cover the cost of living as he had been accustomed to live prior to that +disastrous day when the major waked up in the morning to find that all +his inherited investments had vanished over night--and, vanishing so, +had taken with them the small but sufficient income that had always been +ample for his needs. + +In that month the major had seen but one or two of his fellow lodgers, +slouching forms that passed him by in the gloom of the half-lighted +hallways or on the creaky stairs. His landlady he saw but once a +week--on Saturday, which was settlement day. She was a forlorn, gray +creature, half blind, and she felt her way about gropingly. By the droop +in her spine and by the corners of her lips, permanently puckered from +holding pins in her mouth, a close observer would have guessed that she +had been a seamstress before her eyes gave out on her and she took to +keeping lodgers. Of the character of the establishment the innocent old +major knew nothing; he knew that it was cheap and that it was on a quiet +by-street, and for his purposes that was sufficient. + +He heaved another small sigh and passed slowly up the worn steps of the +stairwell until he came to the top of the house. His room was on the +attic floor, the middle room of the three that lined the bare hall on +one side. The door-knob was broken off; only its iron center remained. +His fingers slipped as he fumbled for a purchase upon the metal core; +but finally, after two attempts, he gripped it and it turned, admitting +him into the darkness of a stuffy interior. The major made haste to open +the one small window before he lit the single gas jet. Its guttery flare +exposed a bed, with a thin mattress and a skimpy cover, shoved close up +under the sloping wall; a sprained chair on its last legs; an old +horsehide trunk; a shaky washstand of cheap yellow pine, garnished forth +with an ewer and a basin; a limp, frayed towel; and a minute segment of +pale pink soap. + +Major Stone was in the act of removing his coat when he became aware of +a certain sound, occurring at quick intervals. In the posture of a plump +and mature robin he cocked his head on one side to listen; and now he +remembered that he had heard the same sound the night before, and the +night before that. These times, though, he had heard it intermittently +and dimly, as he tossed about half awake and half asleep, trying to +accommodate his elderly bones to the irregularities of his hot and +uncomfortable bed. But now he heard it more plainly, and at once he +recognized it for what it was--the sound of a woman crying; a wrenching +succession of deep, racking gulps, and in between them little moaning, +panting breaths, as of utter exhaustion--a sound such as might be +distilled from the very dregs of a grief too great to be borne. + +He looked about him, his eyes and ears searching for further explanation +of this. He had it. There was a door set in the cross-wall of his +room--a door bolted and nailed up. It had a transom over it and against +the dirty glass of the transom a light was reflected, and through the +door and the transom the sound came. The person in trouble, whoever it +might be, was in that next room--and that person was a woman and she was +in dire distress. There was a compelling note in her sobbing. + +Undecided, Major Stone stood a minute rubbing his nose pensively with a +small forefinger; then the resolution to act fastened upon him. He +slipped his coat back on, smoothed down his thin mane of reddish gray +hair with his hands, stepped out into the hall and rapped delicately +with a knuckled finger upon the door of the next room. There was no +answer, so he rapped a little harder; and at that a sob checked itself +and broke off chokingly in the throat that uttered it. From within a +voice came. It was a shaken, tear-drained voice--flat and uncultivated. + +"Who's there?" The major cleared his throat. "Is it a woman--or a man?" +demanded the unseen speaker without waiting for an answer to the first +question. + +"It is a gentleman," began the major--"a gentleman who----" + +"Come on in!" she bade him--"the door ain't latched." + +And at that the major turned the knob and looked into a room that was +practically a counterpart of his own, except that, instead of a trunk, a +cheap imitation-leather suitcase stood upright on the floor, its sides +bulging and strained from over-packing. Upon the bed, fully dressed, +was stretched a woman--or, rather, a girl. Her head was just rising from +the crumpled pillow and her eyes, red-rimmed and widely distended, +stared full into his. + +What she saw, as she sat up, was a short, elderly man with a solicitous, +gentle face; the coat sleeves were turned back off his wrists and his +linen shirt jutted out between the unfastened upper buttons and +buttonholes of his waistcoat. What the major saw was a girl of perhaps +twenty or maybe twenty-two--in her present state it was hard to +guess--with hunched-in shoulders and dyed, stringy hair falling in a +streaky disarray down over her face like unraveled hemp. + +It was her face that told her story. Upon the drawn cheeks and the +drooped, woful lips there was no dabbing of cosmetics now; the +professional smile, painted, pitiable and betraying, was lacking from +the characterless mouth, yet the major--sweet-minded, clean-living old +man though he was--knew at a glance what manner of woman he had found +here in this lodging house. It was the face of a woman who never +intentionally does any evil and yet rarely gets a chance to do any +good--a weak, indecisive, commonplace face; and every line in it was a +line of least resistance. + +That then was what these two saw in each other as they stared a moment +across the intervening space. It was the girl who took the initiative. + +"Are you one of the police?" Then instantly on the heels of the query: +"No; I know better'n that--you ain't no police!" + +Her voice was unmusical, vulgar and husky from much weeping. Magically, +though, she had checked her sobbing to an occasional hard gulp that +clicked down in her throat. + +"No, ma'am," said Major Stone, with a grave and respectful courtesy, "I +am not connected with the police department. I am a professional +man--associated at this time with the practice of journalism. I have the +apartment or chamber adjoining yours and, accidentally overhearing a +member of the opposite sex in seeming distress, I took it upon myself to +offer any assistance that might lie within my power. If I am intruding I +will withdraw." + +"No," she said; "it ain't no intrusion. I wisht, please, sir, you'd come +in jest a minute anyway. I feel like I jest got to talk to somebody a +minute. I'm sorry, though, if I disturbed you by my cryin'--but I jest +couldn't help it. Last night and the night before--that was the first +night I come here--I cried all night purty near; but I kept my head in +the bedclothes. But tonight, after it got dark up here and me layin' +here all alone, I felt as if I couldn't stand it no longer. Honest, I +like to died! Right this minute I'm almost plum' distracted." + +The major advanced a step. + +"I assure you I deeply regret to learn of your unhappiness," he said. +"If you desire it I will be only too glad to summon our worthy landlady, +Miss--Miss----" he paused. + +"Miss La Mode," she said, divining--"Blanche La Mode--that's my name. I +come from Indianapolis, Indiana. But please, mister, don't call that +there woman. I don't want to see her. For a while I didn't think I +wanted to see nobody, and yit I've known all along, from the very first, +that sooner or later I'd jest naturally have to talk to somebody. I knew +I'd jest have to!" she repeated with a kind of weak intensity. "And it +might jest as well be you as anybody, I guess." + +She sat up on the side of the bed, dangling her feet, and subconsciously +the major took in fuller details of her attire--the cheap white slippers +with rickety, worn-down high heels; the sleazy stockings; the +over-decorated skirt of shabby blue cloth; the soiled and rumpled waist +of coarse lace, gaping away from the scrawny neck, where the fastenings +had pulled awry. Looped about her throat and dangling down on her flat +breast, where they heaved up and down with her breathing, was a double +string of pearls that would have been worth ten thousand dollars had +they been genuine pearls. A hand which was big-knuckled and thin held a +small, moist wad of handkerchief. About her there was something +unmistakably bucolic, and yet she was town-branded, too, flesh and +soul. Major Stone bowed with the ceremonious detail that was a part of +him. + +"My name, ma'am, is Stone--Major Putnam Stone, at your service," he told +her. + +"Yes, sir," she said, seeming not to catch either his name or his title. +"Well, mister, I'm goin' to tell you something that'll maybe surprise +you. I ain't goin' to ast you not to tell anybody, 'cause I guess you +will anyhow, sooner or later; and it don't make much difference if you +do. But seems's if I can't hold in no longer. I guess maybe I'll feel +easier in my own mind when I git it all told. Shet that door--jest close +it--the lock is broke--and set down in that chair, please, sir." + +The major closed the latchless door and took the one tottery chair. The +girl remained where she was, on the side of her bed, her slippered feet +dangling, her eyes fixed on a spot where there was a three-cornered +break in the dirty-gray plastering. + +"You know about Rodney G. Bullard, the lawyer, don't you?--about him +bein' found shot day before yistiddy evenin' in the mouth of that +alley?" she asked. + +"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Though I was not personally acquainted with the +man himself, I am familiar with the circumstances you mention." + +"Well," she said, with a sort of jerk behind each word, "it was me that +done it!" + +"I beg your pardon," he said, half doubting whether he had heard +aright, "but what was it you said you did?" + +"Shot him!" she answered--"I was the one that shot him--with this thing +here." She reached one hand under the pillow and drew out a +short-barreled, stubby revolver and extended it to him. Mechanically he +took it, and thereafter for a space he held it in his hands. The girl +went straight on, pouring out her sentences with a driven, desperate +eagerness. + +"I didn't mean to do it, though--God knows I didn't mean to do it! He +treated me mighty sorry--it was lowdown and mean all the way through, +the way he done me--but I didn't mean him no real harm. I was only +aimin' to skeer him into doin' the right thing by me. It was +accidental-like--it really was, mister! In all my life I ain't never +intentionally done nobody any harm. And yit it seems like somebody's +forever and a day imposin' on me!" She quavered with the puny passion of +her protest against the world that had bruised and beaten her as with +rods. + +Shocked, stunned, the major sat in a daze, making little clucking sounds +in his throat. For once in his conversational life he couldn't think of +the right words to say. He fumbled the short pistol in his hands. + +[Illustration: "I WAS THE ONE THAT SHOT HIM--WITH THIS THING HERE." +--_Page 164._] + +"I'm goin' to tell you the whole story, jest like it was," she went on +in her flat drone; and the words she spoke seemed to come to him from a +long way off. "That there Rodney Bullard he tricked me somethin' +shameful. He come to the town where I was livin' to make a speech in a +political race, and we got acquainted and he made up to me. I was +workin' in a hotel there--one of the dinin' room help. That was two +years ago this comin' September. Well, the next day, when he left, he +got me to come 'long with him. He said he'd look after me. I liked him +some then and he talked mighty big about what he was goin' to do for me; +so I come with him. He told me that I could be his----" She hesitated. + +"His amanuensis, perhaps," suggested the old man. + +"Which?" she said. "No; it wasn't that way--he didn't say nothin' about +marryin' me and I didn't expect him to. He told me that I should be his +girl--that was all; but he didn't keep his word--no, sir; right from the +very first he broke his word to me! It wasn't more'n a month after I got +here before he quit comin' to see me at all. Well, after that I stayed a +spell longer at the house where I was livin' and then I went to another +house--Vic Magner's. You know who she is, I reckin?" + +The major half nodded, half shook his head. + +"By reputation only I know the person in question," he answered a bit +stiffly. + +"Well," she went on, "there ain't so much more to tell. I've been sick +lately--I had a right hard spell. I ain't got my strength all back yit. +I was laid up three weeks, and last Monday, when I was up and jest +barely able to crawl round, Vic Magner, she come to me and told me that +I'd have to git out unless I could git somebody to stand good for my +board. I owed her for three weeks already and I didn't have but nine +dollars to my name. I offered her that, but she said she wanted it all +or nothin'. I think she wanted to git shet of me anyway. Mister, I was +mighty weak and discouraged--I was so! I didn't know what to do. + +"I hadn't seen Rod Bullard for goin' on more than a year, but he was the +only one I could think of; so I slipped out of the house and went acrost +the street to a grocery store where there was a pay station, and I +called him up on the telephone and ast him to help me out a little. It +wasn't no more than right that he should, was it, seein' as he was +responsible for my comin' here? Besides, if it hadn't been for him in +the first place I wouldn't never 'a' got into all that trouble. I talked +with him over the telephone at his office and he said he'd do somethin' +for me. He said he'd send me some money that evenin' or else he'd bring +it round himself. But he didn't do neither one. And Vic Magner, she kept +on doggin' after me for her board money. + +"I telephoned him again the next mornin'; but before I could say more'n +two words to him he got mad and told me to quit botherin' him, and he +rung off. That was day before yistiddy. When I got back to the house Vic +Magner come to me, and I couldn't give her no satisfaction. So about six +o'clock in the evenin' she made me pack up and git out. I didn't have +nowheres to go and only eight dollars and ninety cents left--I'd spent a +dime telephoning so, before I got out I took and wrote Rod Bullard a +note, and when I got outside I give a little nigger boy fifteen cents to +take it to him. I told him in the note I was out in the street, without +nowheres to go, and that if he didn't meet me that night and do +somethin' for me I'd jest have to come to his office. I said for him to +meet me at eight o'clock at the mouth of Grayson Street Alley. That give +me two hours to wait. I walked round and round, packin' my baggage. + +"Then I come by a pawnstore and seen a lot of pistols in the window, and +I went in and I bought one for two dollars and a half. The pawnstore man +he throwed in the shells. But I wasn't aimin' to hurt Rod Bullard--jest +to skeer him. I was thinkin' some of killin' myself too. Then I walked +round some more till I was plum' wore out. + +"When eight o'clock come I was waitin' where I said, and purty soon he +come along. As soon as he saw me standin' there in the shadder he bulged +up to me. He was mighty mad. He called me out of my name and said I +didn't have no claims on him--a whole lot more like that--and said he +didn't purpose to be bothered with me phonin' him and writin' him notes +and callin' on him for money. I said somethin' back, and then he made +like he was goin' to hit me with his fist. I'd had that pistol in my +hand all the time, holdin' it behind my skirt. And I pulled it and I +pointed it like I was goin' to shoot--jest to skeer him, though, and +make him do the right thing by me. I jest simply pointed it at +him--that's all. I didn't have no idea it would go off without you +pulled the hammer back first! + +"Then it happened! It went off right in my hand. And he said to me: 'Now +you've done it!'--jest like that. He walked away from me about ten feet, +and started to lean up against a tree, and then he fell down right smack +on his face. And I grabbed up my baggage and run away. I wasn't sorry +about him. I ain't been sorry about him a minute since--ain't that +funny? But I was awful skeered!" + +Rocking her body back and forth from the hips, she put her hands up to +her face. Major Stone stared at her, his mind in a twisting eddy of +confused thoughts. Perhaps it was the clearest possible betrayal of his +utter unfitness for his new vocation in life that not until that very +moment when the girl had halted her narrative did it come to him--and it +came then with a sudden jolt--that here he had one of those monumental +news stories for which young Gilfoil or young Webb would be willing to +barter his right arm and throw in an eye for good measure. It was a +scoop, as those young fellows had called it--an exclusive confession of +a big crime--a thing that would mean much to any paper and to any +reporter who brought it to his paper. It would transform a failure into +a conspicuous success. It would put more money into a pay envelope. And +he had it all! Sheer luck had brought it to him and flung it into his +lap. + +Nor was he under any actual pledge of secrecy. This girl had told it to +him freely, of her own volition. It was not in the nature of her to keep +her secret. She had told it to him, a stranger; she would tell it to +other strangers--or else somebody would betray her. And surely this +sickly, slack-twisted little wanton would be better off inside the +strong arm of the law than outside it? No jury of Southern men would +convict her of murder--the thought was incredible. She would be kindly +dealt with. In one illuminating flash the major divined that these would +have been the inevitable conclusions of any one of those ambitious young +men at the office. He bent forward. + +"What did you do then, ma'am?" he asked. + +"I didn't know what to do," she said, dropping her hands into her lap. +"I run till I couldn't run no more, and then I walked and walked and +walked. I reckin I must 'a' walked ten miles. And then, when I was jest +about to drop, I come past this house. There was a light burnin' on the +porch and I could make out to read the sign on the door, and it said +Lodgers Taken. + +"So I walked in and rung the bell, and when the woman came I said I'd +jest got here from the country and wanted a room. She charged me two +dollars a week, in advance; and I paid her two dollars down--and she +showed me the way up here. + +"I've been here ever since, except twice when I slipped out to buy me +somethin' to eat at a grocery store and to git some newspapers. At first +I figgered the police would be a-comin' after me; but they didn't--there +wasn't nobody at all seen the shootin', I reckin. And I was skeered Vic +Magner might tell on me; but I guess she didn't want to run no risk of +gittin' in trouble herself--that Captain Brennan, of the Second +Precinct, he's been threatenin' to run her out of town the first good +chance he got. And there wasn't none of the other girls there that +knowed I ever knew Rod Bullard. So, you see, I ain't been arrested yit. + +"Layin' here yistiddy all day, with nothin' to do but think and cry, I +made up my mind I'd kill myself. I tried to do it. I took that there +pistol out and I put it up to my head and I said to myself that all I +had to do was jest to pull on that trigger thing and it wouldn't hurt +me but a secont--and maybe not that long. But I couldn't do it, +mister--I jest couldn't do it at all. It seemed like I wanted to die, +and yit I wanted to live too. All my life I've been jest that way--first +thinkin' about doin' one thing and then another, and hardly ever doin' +either one of 'em. + +"Here on this bed tonight I got to thinkin' if I could jest tell +somebody about it that maybe after that I'd feel easier in my mind. And +right that very minute you come and knocked on the door, and I knowed it +was a sign--I knowed you was the one for me to tell it to. And so I've +done it, and already I think I feel a little bit easier in my mind. And +so that's all, mister. But I wisht please you'd take that pistol away +with you when you go--I don't never want to see it again as long as I +live." + +She paused, huddling herself in a heap upon the bed. The major's short +arm made a gesture toward the cheap suitcase. + +"I observe," he said, "that your portmanteau is packed as if for a +journey. Were you thinking of leaving, may I ask?" + +"My which?" she said. "Oh, you mean my baggage! Yes; I ain't never +unpacked it since I come here. I was aimin' to go back to my home--I got +a stepsister livin' there and she might take me in--only after payin' +for this room I ain't got quite enough money to take me there; and now I +don't know as I want to go, either. If I kin git my strength back I +might stay on here--I kind of like city life. Or I might go up to +Cincinnati. A girl that I used to know here is livin' there now and she +wrote to me a couple of times, and I know her address--it was backed on +the envelope. Still, I ain't sure--my plans ain't all made yit. +Sometimes I think I'll give myself up, but most generally I think I +won't. I've got to do somethin' purty soon though, one way or another, +because I ain't got but a little over three dollars left out of what I +had." + +She sank her head in the pillow wearily, with her face turned away from +him. The major stood up. Into his side coat pocket he slipped the +revolver that had snuffed out the late and unsavory Rodney Bullard's +light of life, and from his trousers pocket he slowly drew forth his +supply of ready money. He had three silver dollars, one quarter, one +dime, and a nickel--three-forty in all. Contemplating the disks of metal +in the palm of his hand, he did a quick sum in mental arithmetic. This +was Thursday night now. Saturday afternoon at two he would draw a pay +envelope containing twelve dollars. Meantime he must eat. Well, if he +stinted himself closely a dollar might be stretched to bridge the gap +until Saturday. The major had learned a good deal about the noble art of +stinting these last few weeks. + +On the coverlet alongside the girl he softly piled two of the silver +dollars and the forty cents in change. Then, after a momentary +hesitation, he put down the third silver dollar, gathered up the forty +cents, slid it gently into his pocket and started for the door, the +loose planks creaking under his tread. At the threshold he halted. + +"Good night, Miss La Mode," he said. "I trust your night's repose may be +restful and refreshing to you, ma'am." + +She lifted her face from the pillow and spoke, without turning to look +at him. + +"Mister," she said, "I've told you the whole truth about that thing and +I ain't goin' to lie to you about anythin' else. I didn't come from +Indianapolis, Indiana, like I told you. My home is in Swainboro', this +state--a little town. You might know where it is? And my real name ain't +La Mode, neither. I taken it out of a book--the La Mode part--and I +always did think Blanche was an awful sweet name for a girl. But my real +name is Gussie Stammer. Good night, mister. I'm much obliged to you fer +listenin', and I ain't goin' to disturb you no more with my cryin' if I +kin help it." + +As the major gently closed her door behind him he heard her give a long, +sleepy sigh, like a tired child. Back in his own room he glanced about +him, meanwhile feeling himself over for writing material. He found in +his pockets a pencil and a couple of old letters, whereas he knew he +needed a big sheaf of copy paper for the story he had to write. Anyway, +there was no place here to do an extended piece of writing--no desk and +no comfortable chair. The office would be a much better place. + +The office was only a matter of two or three blocks away. The negro +watchman would be there; he stayed on duty all night. Using the corner +of his washstand for a desk, the major set down his notes--names, +places, details, dates--upon the backs of his two letters. This done, he +settled his ancient hat on his head, picked up his cane, and in another +minute was tiptoeing down the stairs and out the front doorway. Once +outside, his tread took on the brisk emphasis of one set upon an +important task and in a hurry to do it. + + * * * * * + +Ten minutes later Major Stone sat at his desk in the empty city room of +the Evening Press. Except for Henry, the old black night watchman, there +was no other person in the building anywhere. Just over his head an +incandescent bulb blazed, bringing out in strong relief the major's +intent old face, mullioned with crisscross lines. A cedar pencil, newly +sharpened, was in his fingers; under his right hand was a block of clean +copy paper. His notes lay in front of him, the little stubnosed pistol +serving as a paper weight to hold the two wrinkled envelopes flat. +Through the loop of the trigger guard the words, Gussie Stammer, alias +Blanche La Mode, showed. Everything was ready. + +The major hesitated, though. He readjusted his paper and fidgeted his +pencil. He scratched his head and pulled at the little tuft of goatee +under his lower lip. Like many a more experienced author, Major Stone +was having trouble getting under way. He had his own ideas about a +fitting introductory paragraph. Coming along, he had thought up a full +sonorous one, with a biblical injunction touching on the wages of sin +embodied in it; but, on the other hand, there was to be borne in mind +the daily-dinned injunction of Devore that every important news item +should begin with a sentence in which the whole story was summed up. +Finally Major Stone made a beginning. He covered nearly a sheet of +paper. + +Then, becoming suddenly dissatisfied with it, he tore up what he had +written and started all over again, only to repeat the same operation. +Two salty drops rolled down his face and fell upon the paper, and +instantly little twin blistered blobs like tearmarks appeared on its +clear surface. They were not tears, though--they were drops of sweat +wrung from the major's brow by the pains of creation. Again he poised +his pencil and again he halted it in the air--he needed inspiration. His +gaze rested absently upon the pistol; absently he picked it up and began +examining it. + +It was a cheap, rusted, second-hand thing, poorly made, but no doubt +deadly enough at close range. He unbreeched it and spun the cylinder +with his thumb and spilled the contents into his palm--four loaded +shells, suety and slick with grease, and one that had been recently +fired; and it was discolored and flattened a trifle. Each of the four +loaded shells had a small cap like a little round staring eye set in the +exact center of its flanged butt-end, but the eye of the fifth shell was +punched in. He turned the empty weapon in his hands, steadying its +mechanism, and as he did so a scent of burnt powder, stale and dead, +came to him out of the fouled muzzle. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed +at it. + +It had been many a long day since the major had had that smell in his +nostrils--many a long, long day. But there had been a time when it was +familiar enough to him. Even now it brought the clamoring memories of +that far distant time back to him, fresh and vivid. It stimulated his +imagination, quickening his mind with big thoughts. It recalled those +four years when he had fought for a principle, and had kept on fighting +even when the substance of the thing he fought for was gone and there +remained but the empty husks. It recalled those last few hopeless months +when the forlorn hope had become indeed a lost cause; when the forty +cents he now carried in his pocket would have seemed a fortune; when the +sorry house where he lodged now would have seemed a palace; when, +without prospect or hope of reward or victory, he had piled risk upon +risk, had piled sacrifice upon sacrifice, and through it all had borne +it all without whimper or complaint--fighting the good fight like a +soldier, keeping the faith like a gentleman. It was the Smoke of Battle! + +The major had his inspiration now, right enough. He knew just what he +would write; knew just how he would write it. He laid down the pistol +and the shells and squared off and straightway began writing. For two +hours nearly he wrote away steadily, rarely changing or erasing a word, +stopping only to repoint the lead of his pencil. Methodically as a +machine he covered sheet after sheet with his fine old-fashioned script. +Never for one instant did he hesitate or falter. + +Just before one o'clock he finished. The completed manuscript, each page +of the twenty-odd pages properly numbered, lay in a neat pile before +him. He scooped up the pistol shells and stored them in an inner breast +pocket of his coat; then he opened a drawer, slipped the emptied +revolver well back under a riffle of papers and clippings and closed the +drawer and locked it. His notes he tore into squares, and those squares +into smaller squares--and so on until the fragments would tear no finer, +but fluttered out between his fingers in a small white shower like stage +snow. + +He shoved his completed narrative back under the roll-top of Devore's +desk, where the city editor would see it the very first thing when he +came to work; and as he straightened up with a little grunt of +satisfaction and stretched his arms out the last of his fine-linen +shirts, with a rending sound, ripped down the plaited front, from +collarband almost to waistline. + +He eyed the ruined bosom with a regretful stare, plucking at the gaping +tear with his graphite-dusted fingers and shaking his head mournfully. +Yet as he stepped out into the street, bound for his lodgings, he jarred +his heels down upon the sidewalk with the brisk, snapping gait of a man +who has tackled a hard job and has done it well, and is satisfied with +the way he has done it. + + * * * * * + +Under a large black head the major's story was printed in the Fourth of +July edition of the Evening Press. It ran full two columns and lapped +over into a third column. It was an exhaustive--and exhausting--account +of the Fall of Vicksburg. + + + + +VI + +THE EXIT OF ANSE DUGMORE + + +When a Kentucky mountaineer goes to the penitentiary the chances are +that he gets sore eyes from the white walls that enclose him, or quick +consumption from the thick air that he breathes. It was entirely in +accordance with the run of his luck that Anse Dugmore should get them +both, the sore eyes first and then the consumption. + +There is seldom anything that is picturesque about the man-killer of the +mountain country. He is lacking sadly in the romantic aspect and the +delightfully studied vernacular with which an inspired school of fiction +has invested our Western gun-fighter. No alluring jingle of belted +accouterment goes with him, no gift of deadly humor adorns his equally +deadly gun-play. He does his killing in an unemotional, unattractive +kind of way, with absolutely no regard for costume or setting. Rarely is +he a fine figure of a man. + +Take Anse Dugmore now. He had a short-waisted, thin body and abnormally +long, thin legs, like the shadow a man casts at sunup. He didn't have +that steel-gray eye of which we so often read. His eyes weren't of any +particular color, and he had a straggly mustache of sandy red and no +chin worth mentioning; but he could shoot off a squirrel's head, or a +man's, at the distance of a considerable number of yards. + +Until he was past thirty he played merely an incidental part in the +tribal war that had raged up and down Yellow Banks Creek and its +principal tributary, the Pigeon Roost, since long before the Big War. He +was getting out timber to be floated down the river on the spring rise +when word came to him of an ambuscade that made him the head of his +immediate clan and the upholder of his family's honor. + +"Yore paw an' yore two brothers was laywaid this mawnin' comin' 'long +Yaller Banks togither," was the message brought by a breathless bearer +of news. "The wimmenfolks air totin' 'em home now. Talt, he ain't dead +yit." + +From a dry spot behind a log Anse lifted his rifle and started over the +ridge with the long, shambling gait of the born hill-climber that eats +up the miles. For this emergency he had been schooled years back when he +sat by a wood fire in a cabin of split boards and listened to his +crippled-up father reciting the saga of the feud, with the tally of +this one killed and that one maimed; for this he had been schooled when +he practised with rifle and revolver until, even as a boy, his aim had +become as near an infallible thing as anything human gets to be; for +this he had been schooled still more when he rode, armed and watchful, +to church or court or election. Its coming found him ready. + +Two days he ranged the ridges, watching his chance. The Tranthams were +hard to find. They were barricaded in their log-walled strongholds, well +guarded in anticipation of expected reprisals, and prepared in due +season to come forth and prove by a dozen witnesses, or two dozen if so +many should be needed to establish the alibi, that they had no hand in +the massacre of the Dugmores. + +But two days and nights of still-hunting, of patiently lying in wait +behind brush fences, of noiseless, pussy-footed patrolling in likely +places, brought the survivor of the decimated Dugmores his chance. He +caught Pegleg Trantham riding down Red Bird Creek on a mare-mule. Pegleg +was only a distant connection of the main strain of the enemy. It was +probable that he had no part in the latest murdering; perhaps doubtful +that he had any prior knowledge of the plot. But by his name and his +blood-tie he was a Trantham, which was enough. + +A writer of the Western school would have found little in this encounter +that was really worth while to write about. Above the place of the +meeting rose the flank of the mountain, scarred with washes and scantily +clothed with stunted trees, so that in patches the soil showed through +like the hide of a mangy hound. The creek was swollen by the April rains +and ran bank-full through raw, red walls. Old Pegleg came cantering +along with his rifle balanced on the sliding withers of his mare-mule, +for he rode without a saddle. He was an oldish man and fat for a +mountaineer. A ten-year-old nephew rode behind him, with his short arms +encircling his uncle's paunch. The old man wore a dirty white shirt with +a tabbed bosom; a single shiny white china button held the neckband +together at the back. Below the button the shirt billowed open, showing +his naked back. His wooden leg stuck straight out to the side, its worn +brass tip carrying a blob of red mud, and his good leg dangled down +straight, with the trousers hitched half-way up the bare shank and a +soiled white-yarn sock falling down into the wrinkled and gaping top of +an ancient congress gaiter. + +From out of the woods came Anse Dugmore, bareheaded, crusted to his +knees with dried mud and wet from the rain that had been dripping down +since daybreak. A purpose showed in all the lines of his slouchy frame. + +Pegleg jerked his rifle up, but he was hampered by the boy's arms about +his middle and by his insecure perch upon the peaks of the slab-sided +mule. The man afoot fired before the mounted enemy could swing his +gunbarrel into line. The bullet ripped away the lower part of Pegleg's +face and grazed the cheek of the crouching youngster behind him. The +white-eyed nephew slid head first off the buck-jumping mule and +instantly scuttled on all fours into the underbrush. The rifle dropped +out of Trantham's hands and he lurched forward on the mule's neck, +grabbing out with blind, groping motions. Dugmore stepped two paces +forward to free his eyes of the smoke, which eddied back from his +gunmuzzle into his face, and fired twice rapidly. The mule was bouncing +up and down, sideways, in a mild panic. Pegleg rolled off her, as inert +as a sack of grits, and lay face upward in the path, with his arms wide +outspread on the mud. The mule galloped off in a restrained and +dignified style until she was a hundred yards away, and then, having +snorted the smells of burnt powder and fresh blood out of her nostrils, +she fell to cropping the young leaves off the wayside bushes, mouthing +the tender green shoots on her heavy iron bit contentedly. + +For a long minute Anse Dugmore stood in the narrow footpath, listening. +Then he slid three new shells into his rifle, and slipping down the bank +he crossed the creek on a jam of driftwood and, avoiding the roads that +followed the little watercourse, made over the shoulder of the mountain +for his cabin, two miles down on the opposite side. When he was gone +from sight the nephew of the dead Trantham rolled out of his hiding +place and fled up the road, holding one hand to his wounded cheek and +whimpering. Presently a gaunt, half-wild boar pig, with his spine arched +like the mountains, came sniffing slowly down the hill, pausing +frequently to cock his wedge-shaped head aloft and fix a hostile eye on +two turkey buzzards that began to swing in narrowing circles over one +particular spot on the bank of the creek. + +The following day Anse sent word to the sheriff that he would be coming +in to give himself up. It would not have been etiquette for the sheriff +to come for him. He came in, well guarded on the way by certain of his +clan, pleaded self-defense before a friendly county judge and was locked +up in a one-cell log jail. His own cousin was the jailer and ministered +to him kindly. He avoided passing the single barred window of the jail +in the daytime or at night when there was a light behind him, and he +expected to "come clear" shortly, as was customary. + +But the Tranthams broke the rules of the game. The circuit judge lived +half-way across the mountains in a county on the Virginia line; he was +not an active partizan of either side in the feud. These Tranthams, +disregarding all the ethics, went before this circuit judge and asked +him for a change of venue, and got it, which was more; so that instead +of being tried in Clayton County--and promptly acquitted--Anse Dugmore +was taken to Woodbine County and there lodged in a shiny new brick jail. +Things were in process of change in Woodbine. A spur of the railroad had +nosed its way up from the lowlands and on through the Gap, and had made +Loudon, the county-seat, a division terminal. Strangers from the North +had come in, opening up the mountains to mines and sawmills and bringing +with them many swarthy foreign laborers. A young man of large hopes and +an Eastern college education had started a weekly newspaper and was +talking big, in his editorial columns, of a new order of things. The +foundation had even been laid for a graded school. Plainly Woodbine +County was falling out of touch with the century-old traditions of her +sisters to the north and west of her. + +In due season, then, Anse Dugmore was brought up on a charge of +homicide. The trial lasted less than a day. A jury of strangers heard +the stories of Anse himself and of the dead Pegleg's white-eyed nephew. +In the early afternoon they came back, a wooden toothpick in each mouth, +from the new hotel where they had just had a most satisfying fifty-cent +dinner at the expense of the commonwealth, and sentenced the defendant, +Anderson Dugmore, to state prison at hard labor for the balance of his +natural life. + +The sheriff of Woodbine padlocked on Anse's ankles a set of leg irons +that had been made by a mountain blacksmith out of log chains and led +him to the new depot. It was Anse Dugmore's first ride on a railroad +train; also it was the first ride on any train for Wyatt Trantham, head +of the other clan, who, having been elected to the legislature while +Anse lay in jail, had come over from Clayton, bound for the state +capital, to draw his mileage and be a statesman. + +It was not in the breed for the victorious Trantham to taunt his hobbled +enemy or even to look his way, but he sat just across the aisle from the +prisoner so that his ear might catch the jangle of the heavy irons when +Dugmore moved in his seat. They all left the train together at the +little blue-painted Frankfort station, Trantham turning off at the first +crossroads to go where the round dome of the old capitol showed above +the water-maple trees, and Dugmore clanking straight ahead, with a +string of negroes and boys and the sheriff following along behind +him. Under the shadow of a quarried-out hillside a gate opened +in a high stone wall to admit him into life membership with a +white-and-black-striped brotherhood of shame. + +Four years there did the work for the gangling, silent mountaineer. One +day, just before the Christmas holidays, the new governor of the state +paid a visit to the prison. Only his private secretary came with him. +The warden showed them through the cell houses, the workshops, the +dining hall and the walled yards. It was a Sunday afternoon; the white +prisoners loafed in their stockade, the blacks in theirs. In a corner on +the white side, where the thin and skimpy winter sunshine slanted over +the stockade wall, Anse Dugmore was squatted; merely a rack of bones +enclosed in a shapeless covering of black-and-white stripes. On his +close-cropped head and over his cheekbones the skin was stretched so +tight it seemed nearly ready to split. His eyes, glassy and bleared with +pain, stared ahead of him with a sick man's fixed stare. Inside his +convict's cotton shirt his chest was caved away almost to nothing, and +from the collarless neckband his neck rose as bony as a plucked fowl's, +with great, blue cords in it. Lacking a coverlet to pick, his fingers +picked at the skin on his retreating chin. + +As the governor stood in an arched doorway watching, the lengthening +afternoon shadow edged along and covered the hunkered-down figure by the +wall. Anse tottered to his feet, moved a few inches so that he might +still be in the sunshine, and settled down again. This small exertion +started a cough that threatened to tear him apart. He drew his hand +across his mouth and a red stain came away on the knotty knuckles. The +warden was a kindly enough man in the ordinary relations of life, but +nine years as a tamer of man-beasts in a great stone cage had overlaid +his sympathies with a thickening callus. + +"One of our lifers that we won't have with us much longer," he said +casually, noting that the governor's eyes followed the sick convict. +"When the con gets one of these hill billies he goes mighty fast." + +"A mountaineer, then?" said the governor. "What's his name?" + +"Dugmore," answered the warden; "sent from Clayton County. One of those +Clayton County feud fighters." + +The governor nodded understandingly. "What sort of a record has he made +here?" + +"Oh, fair enough!" said the warden. "Those man-killers from the +mountains generally make good prisoners. Funny thing about this fellow, +though. All the time he's been here he never, so far as I know, had a +message or a visitor or a line of writing from the outside. Nor wrote a +letter out himself. Nor made friends with anybody, convict or guard." + +"Has he applied for a pardon?" asked the governor. + +"Lord, no!" said the warden. "When he was well he just took what was +coming to him, the same as he's taking it now. I can look up his record, +though, if you'd care to see it, sir." + +"I believe I should," said the governor quietly. + +A spectacled young wife-murderer, who worked in the prison office on +the prison books, got down a book and looked through it until he came to +a certain entry on a certain page. The warden was right--so far as the +black marks of the prison discipline went, the friendless convict's +record showed fair. + +"I think," said the young governor to the warden and his secretary when +they had moved out of hearing of the convict bookkeeper--"I think I'll +give that poor devil a pardon for a Christmas gift. It's no more than a +mercy to let him die at home, if he has any home to go to." + +"I could have him brought in and let you tell him yourself, sir," +volunteered the warden. + +"No, no," said the governor quickly. "I don't want to hear that cough +again. Nor look on such a wreck," he added. + +Two days before Christmas the warden sent to the hospital ward for No. +874. No. 874, that being Anse Dugmore, came shuffling in and kept +himself upright by holding with one hand to the door jamb. The warden +sat rotund and impressive, in a swivel chair, holding in his hands a +folded-up, blue-backed document. + +"Dugmore," he said in his best official manner, "when His Excellency, +Governor Woodford, was here on Sunday he took notice that your general +health was not good. So, of his own accord, he has sent you an +unconditional pardon for a Christmas gift, and here it is." + +The sick convict's eyes, between their festering lids, fixed on the +warden's face and a sudden light flickered in their pale, glazed +shallows; but he didn't speak. There was a little pause. + +"I said the governor has given you a pardon," repeated the warden, +staring hard at him. + +"I heered you the fust time," croaked the prisoner in his eaten-out +voice. "When kin I go?" + +"Is that all you've got to say?" demanded the warden, bristling up. + +"I said, when kin I go?" repeated No. 874. + +"Go!--you can go now. You can't go too soon to suit me!" + +The warden swung his chair around and showed him the broad of his +indignant back. When he had filled out certain forms at his desk he +shoved a pen into the silent consumptive's fingers and showed him +crossly where to make his mark. At a signal from his bent forefinger a +negro trusty came forward and took the pardoned man away and helped him +put his shrunken limbs into a suit of the prison-made slops, of cheap, +black shoddy, with the taint of a jail thick and heavy on it. A deputy +warden thrust into Dugmore's hands a railroad ticket and the five +dollars that the law requires shall be given to a freed felon. He took +them without a word and, still without a word, stepped out of the gate +that swung open for him and into a light, spitty snowstorm. With the +inbred instinct of the hillsman he swung about and headed for the +little, light-blue station at the head of the crooked street. He went +slowly, coughing often as the cold air struck into his wasted lungs, and +sometimes staggering up against the fences. Through a barred window the +wondering warden sourly watched the crawling, tottery figure. + +"Damned savage!" he said to himself. "Didn't even say thank you. I'll +bet he never had any more feelings or sentiments in his life than a +moccasin snake." + +Something to the same general effect was expressed a few minutes later +by a brakeman who had just helped a wofully feeble passenger aboard the +eastbound train and had steered him, staggering and gasping from +weakness, to a seat at the forward end of an odorous red-plush day +coach. + +"Just a bundle of bones held together by a skin," the brakeman was +saying to the conductor, "and the smell of the pen all over him. Never +said a word to me--just looked at me sort of dumb. Bound for plumb up at +the far end of the division, accordin' to the way his ticket reads. I +doubt if he lives to get there." + +The warden and the brakeman both were wrong. The freed man did live to +get there. And it was an emotion which the warden had never suspected +that held life in him all that afternoon and through the comfortless +night in the packed and noisome day coach, while the fussy, +self-sufficient little train went looping, like an overgrown measuring +worm, up through the blue grass, around the outlying knobs of the +foothills, on and on through the great riven chasm of the gateway into a +bleak, bare clutch of undersized mountains. Anse Dugmore had two bad +hemorrhages on the way, but he lived. + + * * * * * + +Under the full moon of a white and flawless night before Christmas, Shem +Dugmore's squatty log cabin made a blot on the thin blanket of snow, and +inside the one room of the cabin Shem Dugmore sat alone by the +daubed-clay hearth, glooming. Hours passed and he hardly moved except to +stir the red coals or kick back some ambitious ember of hickory that +leaped out upon the uneven floor. Suddenly something heavy fell limply +against the locked door, and instantly, all alertness, the shock-headed +mountaineer was backed up against the farther wall, out of range of the +two windows, with his weapons drawn, silent, ready for what might come. +After a minute there was a feeble, faint pecking sound--half knock, half +scratch--at the lower part of the door. It might have been a wornout dog +or any spent wild creature, but no line of Shem Dugmore's figure +relaxed, and under his thick, sandy brows his eyes, in the flickering +light, had the greenish shine of an angry cat-animal's. + +"Whut is it?" he called. "And whut do you want? Speak out peartly!" + +[Illustration: HE DRAGGED THE RIFLE BY THE BARREL, SO THAT ITS BUTT MADE +A CROOKED FURROW IN THE SNOW.--_Page 197._] + +The answer came through the thick planking thinly, in a sort of gasping +whine that ended in a chattering cough; but even after Shem's ear caught +the words, and even after he recognized the changed but still familiar +cadence of the voice, he abated none of his caution. Carefully he +unbolted the door, and, drawing it inch by inch slowly ajar, he reached +out, exposing only his hand and arm, and drew bodily inside the shell of +a man that was fallen, huddled up, against the log door jamb. He dropped +the wooden crossbar back into its sockets before he looked a second time +at the intruder, who had crawled across the floor and now lay before the +wide mouth of the hearth in a choking spell. Shem Dugmore made no move +until the fit was over and the sufferer lay quiet. + +"How did you git out, Anse?" were the first words he spoke. + +The consumptive rolled his head weakly from side to side and swallowed +desperately. "Pardoned out--in writin'--yistiddy." + +"You air in purty bad shape," said Shem. + +"Yes,"--the words came very slowly--"my lungs give out on me--and my +eyes. But--but I got here." + +"You come jist in time," said his cousin; "this time tomorrer and you +wouldn't a' never found me here. I'd 'a' been gone." + +"Gone!--gone whar?" + +"Well," said Shem slowly, "after you was sent away it seemed like them +Tranthams got the upper hand complete. All of our side whut ain't +dead--and that's powerful few--is moved off out of the mountings to +Winchester, down in the settlemints. I'm 'bout the last, and I'm +a-purposin' to slip out tomorrer night while the Tranthams is at their +Christmas rackets--they'd layway me too ef----" + +"But my wife--did she----" + +"I thought maybe you'd heered tell about that whilst you was down yon," +said Shem in a dulled wonder. "The fall after you was took away yore +woman she went over to the Tranthams. Yes, sir; she took up with the +head devil of 'em all--old Wyatt Trantham hisself--and she went to live +at his house up on the Yaller Banks." + +"Is she----Did she----" + +The ex-convict was struggling to his knees. His groping skeletons of +hands were right in the hot ashes. The heat cooked the moisture from his +sodden garments in little films of vapor and filled the cabin with the +reek of the prison dye. + +"Did she--did she----" + +"Oh, she's been dead quite a spell now," stated Shem. "I would have +s'posed you'd 'a' heered that, too, somewhars. She had a kind of a +risin' in the breast." + +"But my young uns--little Anderson and--and Elviry?" + +The sick man was clear up on his knees now, his long arms hanging and +his eyes, behind their matted lids, fixed on Shem's impassive face. +Could the warden have seen him now, and marked his attitude and his +words, he would have known what it was that had brought this dying man +back to _his_ own mountain valley with the breath of life still in him. +A dumb, unuttered love for the two shock-headed babies he had left +behind in the split-board cabin was the one big thing in Anse Dugmore's +whole being--bigger even than his sense of allegiance to the feud. + +"My young uns, Shem?" + +"Wyatt Trantham took 'em and he kep' 'em--he's got 'em both now." + +"Does he--does he use 'em kindly?" + +"I ain't never heered," said Shem simply. "He never had no young uns of +his own, and it mout be he uses 'em well. He's the high sheriff now." + +"I was countin' on gittin' to see 'em agin--an buyin 'em some little +Chrismus fixin's," the father wheezed. Hopelessness was coming into his +rasping whisper. "I reckon it ain't no use to--to be thinkin'--of that +there now?" + +"No 'arthly use at all," said Shem, with brutal directness. "Ef you had +the strength to git thar, the Tranthams would shoot you down like a fice +dog." + +Anse nodded weakly. He sank down again on the floor, face to the boards, +coughing hard. It was the droning voice of his cousin that brought him +back from the borders of the coma he had been fighting off for hours. + +For, to Shem, the best hater and the poorest fighter of all his +cleaned-out clan, had come a great thought. He shook the drowsing man +and roused him, and plied him with sips from a dipper of the unhallowed +white corn whisky of a mountain still-house. And as he worked over him +he told off the tally of the last four years: of the uneven, unmerciful +war, ticking off on his blunt finger ends the grim totals of this one +ambushed and that one killed in the open, overpowered and beaten under +by weight of odds. He told such details as he knew of the theft of the +young wife and the young ones, Elvira and little Anderson. + +"Anse, did ary Trantham see you a-gittin' here tonight?" + +"Nobody--that knowed me--seed me." + +"Old Wyatt Trantham, he rid into Manchester this evenin' 'bout fo' +o'clock--I seed him passin' over the ridge," went on Shem. "He'll be +ridin' back 'long Pigeon Roost some time before mawnin'. He done you a +heap o' dirt, Anse." + +The prostrate man was listening hard. + +"Anse, I got yore old rifle right here in the house. Ef you could git up +thar on the mounting, somewhar's alongside the Pigeon Roost trail, you +could git him shore. He'll be full of licker comin' back." + +And now a seeming marvel was coming to pass, for the caved-in trunk was +rising on the pipestem legs and the shaking fingers were outstretched, +reaching for something. + +Shem stepped lightly to a corner of the cabin and brought forth a rifle +and began reloading it afresh from a box of shells. + + * * * * * + +A wavering figure crept across the small stump-dotted "dead'ning"--Anse +Dugmore was upon his errand. He dragged the rifle by the barrel, so that +its butt made a crooked, broken furrow in the new snow like the trail of +a crippled snake. He fell and got up, and fell and rose again. He +coughed and up the ridge a ranging dog-fox barked back an answer to his +cough. + +From out of the slitted door Shem watched him until the scrub oaks at +the edge of the clearing swallowed him up. Then Shem fastened himself in +and made ready to start his flight to the lowlands that very night. + + * * * * * + +Just below the forks of Pigeon Roost Creek the trail that followed its +banks widened into a track wide enough for wagon wheels. On one side lay +the diminished creek, now filmed over with a glaze of young ice. On the +other the mountain rose steeply. Fifteen feet up the bluff side a fallen +dead tree projected its rotted, broken roots, like snaggled teeth, from +the clayey bank. Behind this tree's trunk, in the snow and half-frozen, +half-melted yellow mire, Anse Dugmore was stretched on his face. The +barrel of the rifle barely showed itself through the interlacing root +ends. It pointed downward and northward toward the broad, moonlit place +in the road. Its stock was pressed tightly against Anse Dugmore's +fallen-in cheek; the trigger finger of his right hand, fleshless as a +joint of cane, was crooked about the trigger guard. A thin stream of +blood ran from his mouth and dribbled down his chin and coagulated in a +sticky smear upon the gun stock. His lungs, what was left of them, were +draining away. + +He lay without motion, saving up the last ounce of his life. The cold +had crawled up his legs to his hips; he was dead already from the waist +down. He no longer coughed, only gasped thickly. He knew that he was +about gone; but he knew, too, that he would last, clear-minded and +clear-eyed, until High Sheriff Wyatt Trantham came. His brain would +last--and his trigger finger. + +Then he heard him coming. Up the trail sounded the muffled music of a +pacer's hoofs single-footing through the snow, and after that, almost +instantly Trantham rode out into sight and loomed larger and larger as +he drew steadily near the open place under the bank. He was wavering in +the saddle. He drew nearer and nearer, and as he came out on the wide +patch of moonlit snow, he pulled the single-footer down to a walk and +halted him and began fumbling in the right-hand side of the saddlebags +that draped his horse's shoulder. + +Up in its covert the rifle barrel moved an inch or two, then steadied +and stopped, the bone-sight at its tip resting full on the broad of the +drunken rider's breast. The boney finger moved inward from the trigger +guard and closed ever so gently about the touchy, hair-filed +trigger--then waited. + +For the uncertain hand of Trantham, every movement showing plain in the +crystal, hard, white moon, was slowly bringing from under the flap of +the right-side saddlebag something that was round and smooth and shone +with a yellowish glassy light, like a fat flask filled with spirits. And +Anse Dugmore waited, being minded now to shoot him as he put the bottle +to his lips, and so cheat Trantham of his last drink on earth, as +Trantham had cheated him of his liberty and his babies--as Trantham had +cheated those babies of the Christmas fixings which the state's five +dollars might have bought. + +He waited, waited---- + + * * * * * + +This was not the first time the high sheriff had stopped that night on +his homeward ride from the tiny county seat, as his befuddlement +proclaimed; but halting there in the open, just past the forks of the +Pigeon Roost, he was moved by a new idea. He fumbled in the right-hand +flap of his saddlebags and brought out a toy drum, round and smooth, +with shiny yellow sides. A cheap china doll with painted black ringlets +and painted blue eyes followed the drum, and then a torn paper bag, from +which small pieces of cheap red-and-green dyed candy sifted out between +the sheriff's fumbling fingers and fell into the snow. + +Thirty feet away, in the dead leaves matted under the roots of an uptorn +dead tree, something moved--something moved; and then there was a sound +like a long, deep, gurgling sigh, and another sound like some heavy, +lengthy object settling itself down flat upon the snow and the leaves. + +The first faint rustle cleared Trantham's brain of the liquor fumes. He +jammed the toys and the candy back into the saddlebags and jerked his +horse sidewise into the protecting shadow of the bluff, reaching at the +same time to the shoulder holster buckled about his body under the +unbuttoned overcoat. For a long minute he listened keenly, the drawn +pistol in his hand. There was nothing to hear except his own breathing +and the breathing of his horse. + +"Sho! Some old hawg turnin' over in her bed," he said to the horse, and +holstering the pistol he went racking on down Pigeon Roost Creek, with +Christmas for Elviry and little Anderson in his saddlebags. + + * * * * * + +When they found Anse Dugmore in his ambush another snow had fallen on +his back and he was slightly more of a skeleton than ever; but the bony +finger was still crooked about the trigger, the rusted hammer was back +at full cock and there was a dried brownish stain on the gun stock. So, +from these facts, his finders were moved to conclude that the freed +convict must have bled to death from his lungs before the sheriff ever +passed, which they held to be a good thing all round and a lucky thing +for the sheriff. + + + + +VII + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN + + +There was a sound, heard in the early hours of a Sunday morning, that +used to bother strangers in our town until they got used to it. It +started usually along about half past five or six o'clock and it kept up +interminably--so it seemed to them--a monotonous, jarring thump-thump, +thump-thump that was like the far-off beating of African tomtoms; but at +breakfast, when the beaten biscuits came upon the table, throwing off a +steamy hot halo of their own goodness, these aliens knew what it was +that had roused them, and, unless they were dyspeptics by nature, felt +amply recompensed for the lost hours of their beauty sleep. + +In these degenerate latter days I believe there is a machine that +accomplishes the same purpose noiselessly by a process of rolling and +crushing, which no doubt is efficacious; but it seems somehow to take +the poetry out of the operation. Old Judge Priest, our circuit judge, +and the reigning black deity of his kitchen, Aunt Dilsey Turner, would +have naught of it. So long as his digestion survived and her good right +arm held out to endure, there would be real beaten biscuits for the +judge's Sunday morning breakfast. And so, having risen with the dawn or +a little later, Aunt Dilsey, wielding a maul-headed tool of whittled +wood, would pound the dough with rhythmic strokes until it was as +plastic as sculptor's modeling clay and as light as eiderdown, full of +tiny hills and hollows, in which small yeasty bubbles rose and spread +and burst like foam globules on the flanks of gentle wavelets. Then, +with her master hand, she would roll it thin and cut out the small round +disks and delicately pink each one with a fork--and then, if you were +listening, you could hear the stove door slam like the smacking of an +iron lip. + +On a certain Sunday I have in mind, Judge Priest woke with the first +premonitory thud from the kitchen, and he was up and dressed in his +white linens and out upon the wide front porch while the summer day was +young and unblemished. The sun was not up good yet. It made a red glow, +like a barn afire, through the treetops looking eastward. Lie-abed +blackbirds were still talking over family matters in the maples that +clustered round the house, and in the back yard Judge Priest's big red +rooster hoarsely circulated gossip in regard to a certain little brown +hen, first crowing out the news loudly and then listening, with his head +on one side, while the rooster in the next yard took it up and repeated +it to a rooster living farther down the road, as is the custom among +male scandalizers the world over. Upon the lawn the little gossamer +hammocks that the grass spiders had seamed together overnight were +spangled with dew, so that each out-thrown thread was a glittering +rosary and the center of each web a silken, cushioned jewel casket. +Likewise each web was outlined in white mist, for the cottonwood trees +were shedding down their podded product so thickly that across open +spaces the slanting lines of the drifting fiber looked like snow. It +would be hot enough after a while, but now the whole world was sweet and +fresh and washed clean. + +It impressed Judge Priest so. He lowered his bulk into a rustic chair +made of hickory withes that gave to his weight, and put his thoughts +upon breakfast and the goodness of the day; but presently, as he sat +there, he saw something that set a frown between his faded blue eyes. + +He saw, coming down Clay Street, upon the opposite side, an old man--a +very feeble old man--who was tall and thin and dressed in somber black. +The man was lame--he dragged one leg along with the hitching gait of the +paralytic. Traveling with painful slowness, he came on until he reached +the corner above. Then automatically he turned at right angles and left +the narrow wooden sidewalk and crossed the dusty road. He passed Judge +Priest's, looking neither to the right nor the left, and so kept on +until he reached the corner below. Still following an invisible path in +the deep-furrowed dust, he crossed again to the other side. Just as he +got there his halt leg seemed to give out altogether and for a minute or +two he stood holding himself up by a fumbling grip upon the slats of a +tree box before he went laboriously on, a figure of pain and weakness in +the early sunshine that was now beginning to slant across his path and +dapple his back with checkerings of shadow and light. + +This maneuver was inexplicable--a stranger would have puzzled to make it +out. The shade was as plentiful upon one side of Clay Street as upon the +other; each sagged wooden sidewalk was in as bad repair as its brother +over the way. The small, shabby frame house, buried in honeysuckles and +balsam vines, which stood close up to the pavement line on the opposite +side of Clay Street, facing Judge Priest's roomy and rambling old home, +had no flag of pestilence at its door or its window. And surely to this +lone pedestrian every added step must have been an added labor. A +stranger would never have understood it; but Judge Priest understood +it--he had seen that same thing repeated countless times in the years +that stretched behind him. Always it had distressed him inwardly, but on +this particular morning it distressed him more than ever. The toiling +grim figure in black had seemed so feeble and so tottery and old. + +Well, Judge Priest was not exactly what you would call young. With an +effort he heaved himself up out of the depths of his hickory chair and +stood at the edge of his porch, polishing a pink bald dome of forehead +as though trying to make up his mind to something. Jefferson Poindexter, +resplendent in starchy white jacket and white apron, came to the door. + +"Breakfus' served, suh!" he said, giving to an announcement touching on +food that glamour of grandeur of which his race alone enjoys the +splendid secret. + +"Hey?" asked the judge absently. + +"Breakfus'--hit's on the table waitin', suh," stated Jeff. "Mizz Polks +sent over her houseboy with a dish of fresh razberries fur yore +breakfus'; and she say to tell you, with her and Mistah Polkses' +compliments, they is fresh picked out of her garden--specially fur you." + +The lady and gentleman to whom Jeff had reference were named Polk, but +in speaking of white persons for whom he had a high regard Jeff always, +wherever possible within the limitations of our speech, tacked on that +final s. It was in the nature of a delicate verbal compliment, implying +that the person referred to was worthy of enlargement and pluralization. + +Alone in the cool, high-ceiled, white-walled dining room, Judge Priest +ate his breakfast mechanically. The raspberries were pink beads of +sweetness; the young fried chicken was a poem in delicate and flaky +browns; the spoon bread could not have been any better if it had tried; +and the beaten biscuits were as light as snowflakes and as ready to melt +on the tongue; but Judge Priest spoke hardly a word all through the +meal. Jeff, going out to the kitchen for the last course, said to Aunt +Dilsey: + +"Ole boss-man seem lak he's got somethin' on his mind worryin' him this +mawnin'." + +When Jeff returned, with a turn of crisp waffles in one hand and a +pitcher of cane sirup in the other, he stared in surprise, for the +dining room was empty and he could hear his employer creaking down the +hall. Jeff just naturally hated to see good hot waffles going to waste. +He ate them himself, standing up; and they gave him a zest for his +regular breakfast, which followed in due course of time. + +From the old walnut hatrack, with its white-tipped knobs that stood just +inside the front door, Judge Priest picked up a palmleaf fan; and he +held the fan slantwise as a shield for his eyes and his bare head +against the sun's glare as he went down the porch steps and passed out +of his own yard, traversed the empty street and strove with the stubborn +gate latch of the little house that faced his own. It was a poor-looking +little house, and its poorness had extended to its surroundings--as if +poverty was a contagion that spread. In Judge Priest's yard, now, the +grass, though uncared for, yet grew thick and lush; but here, in this +small yard, there were bare, shiny spots of earth showing through the +grass--as though the soil itself was out at elbows and the nap worn off +its green-velvet coat; but the vines about the porch were thick enough +for an ambuscade and from behind their green screen came a voice in +hospitable recognition. + +"Is that you, judge? Well sir, I'm glad to see you! Come right in; take +a seat and sit down and rest yourself." + +The speaker showed himself in the arched opening of the vine barrier--an +old man--not quite so old, perhaps, as the judge. He was in his +shirtsleeves. There was a patch upon one of the sleeves. His shoes had +been newly shined, but the job was poorly done; the leather showed a +dulled black upon the toes and a weathered yellow at the sides and +heels. As he spoke his voice ran up and down--the voice of a deaf person +who cannot hear his own words clearly, so that he pitches them in a +false key. For added proof of this affliction he held a lean and +slightly tremulous hand cupped behind his ear. + +The other hand he extended in greeting as the old judge mounted the step +of the low porch. The visitor took one of two creaky wooden rockers that +stood in the narrow space behind the balsam vines, and for a minute or +two he sat without speech, fanning himself. Evidently these neighborly +calls between these two old men were not uncommon; they could enjoy the +communion of silence together without embarrassment. + +The town clocks struck--first the one on the city hall struck eight +times sedately; and then, farther away, the one on the county +courthouse. This one struck five times slowly, hesitated a moment, +struck eleven times with great vigor, hesitated again, struck once with +a big, final boom, and was through. No amount of repairing could cure +the courthouse clock of this peculiarity. It kept the time, but kept it +according to a private way of its own. Immediately after it ceased the +bell on the Catholic church, first and earliest of the Sunday bells, +began tolling briskly. Judge Priest waited until its clamoring had died +away. + +"Goin' to be good and hot after while," he said, raising his voice. + +"What say?" + +"I say it's goin' to be mighty warm a little later on in the day," +repeated Judge Priest. + +"Yes, suh; I reckon you're right there," assented the host. "Just a +minute ago, before you came over, I was telling Liddie she'd find it +middlin' close in church this morning. She's going, though--runaway +horses wouldn't keep her away from church! I'm not going myself--seems +as though I'm getting more and more out of the church habit here +lately." + +Judge Priest's eyes squinted in whimsical appreciation of this +admission. He remembered that the other man, during the lifetime of his +second wife, had been a regular attendant at services--going twice on +Sundays and to Wednesday night prayer meetings too; but the second wife +had been dead going on four years now--or was it five? Time sped so! + +The deaf man spoke on: + +"So I just thought I'd sit here and try to keep cool and wait for that +Ledbetter boy to come round with the Sunday paper. Did you read last +Sunday's paper, judge? Colonel Watterson certainly had a mighty fine +piece on those Northern money devils. It's round here somewhere--I cut +it out to keep it. I'd like to have you read it and pass your opinion on +it. These young fellows do pretty well, but there's none of them can +write like the colonel, in my judgment." + +Judge Priest appeared not to have heard him. + +"Ed Tilghman," he said abruptly in his high, fine voice, that seemed +absurdly out of place, coming from his round frame, "you and me have +lived neighbors together a good while, haven't we? We've been right +acros't the street from one another all this time. It kind of jolts me +sometimes when I git to thinkin' how many years it's really been; +because we're gittin' along right smartly in years--all us old fellows +are. Ten years from now, say, there won't be so many of us left." He +glanced sidewise at the lean, firm profile of his friend. "You're +younger than some of us; but, even so, you ain't exactly what I'd call a +young man yourself." + +Avoiding the direct, questioning gaze that his companion turned on him +at this, the judge reached forward and touched a ripe balsam apple that +dangled in front of him. Instantly it split, showing the gummed red +seeds clinging to the inner walls of the sensitive pod. + +"I'm listening to you, judge," said the deaf man. + +For a moment the old judge waited. There was about him almost an air of +embarrassment. Still considering the ruin of the balsam apple, he spoke, +and it was with a sort of hurried anxiety, as though he feared he might +be checked before he could say what he had to say. + +"Ed," he said, "I was settin' on my porch a while ago waitin' for +breakfast, and your brother came by." He shot a quick, apprehensive +glance at his silent auditor. Except for a tautened flickering of the +muscles about the mouth, there was no sign that the other had heard him. +"Your brother Abner came by," repeated the judge, "and I set over there +on my porch and watched him pass. Ed, Abner's gittin' mighty feeble! He +jest about kin drag himself along--he's had another stroke lately, they +tell me. He had to hold on to that there treebox down yonder, steadyin' +himself after he crossed back over to this side. Lord knows what he was +doin' draggin' down-town on a Sunday mornin'--force of habit, I reckin. +Anyway he certainly did look older and more poorly than ever I saw him +before. He's a failin' man if I'm any judge. Do you hear me plain?" he +asked. + +"I hear you," said his neighbor in a curiously flat voice. It was +Tilghman's turn to avoid the glances of his friend. He stared straight +ahead of him through a rift in the vines. + +"Well, then," went on Judge Priest, "here's what I've got to say to you, +Ed Tilghman. You know as well as I do that I've never pried into your +private affairs, and it goes mightily against the grain for me to be +doin' so now; but, Ed, when I think of how old we're all gittin' to be, +and when the Camp meets and I see you settin' there side by side almost, +and yet never seemin' to see each other--and this mornin' when I saw +Abner pass, lookin' so gaunt and sick--and it sech a sweet, ca'm mornin' +too, and everything so quiet and peaceful----" He broke off and started +anew. "I don't seem to know exactly how to put my thoughts into +words--and puttin' things into words is supposed to be my trade too. +Anyway I couldn't go to Abner. He's not my neighbor and you are; and +besides, you're the youngest of the two. So--so I came over here to you. +Ed, I'd like mightily to take some word from you to your brother Abner. +I'd like to do it the best in the world! Can't I go to him with a +message from you--today? Tomorrow might be too late!" + +He laid one of his pudgy hands on the bony knee of the deaf man; but the +hand slipped away as Tilghman stood up. + +"Judge Priest," said Tilghman, looking down at him, "I've listened to +what you've had to say; and I didn't stop you, because you are my friend +and I know you mean well by it. Besides, you're my guest, under my own +roof." He stumped back and forth in the narrow confines of the porch. +Otherwise he gave no sign of any emotion that might be astir within him, +his face being still set and his voice flat. "What's between me and +my--what's between me and that man you just named always will be between +us. He's satisfied to let things go on as they are. I'm satisfied to let +them go on. It's in our breed, I guess. Words--just words--wouldn't help +mend this thing. The reason for it would be there just the same, and +neither one of us is going to be able to forget that so long as we both +live. I'd just as soon you never brought this--this subject up again. If +you went to him I presume he'd tell you the same thing. Let it be, Judge +Priest--it's past mending. We two have gone on this way for fifty years +nearly. We'll keep on going on so. I appreciate your kindness, Judge +Priest; but let it be--let it be!" + +There was finality miles deep and fixed as basalt in his tone. He +checked his walk and called in at a shuttered window. + +"Liddie," he said in his natural up-and-down voice, "before you put off +for church, couldn't you mix up a couple of lemonades or something? +Judge Priest is out here on the porch with me." + +"No," said Judge Priest, getting slowly up, "I've got to be gittin' back +before the sun's up too high. If I don't see you again meanwhile be +shore to come to the next regular meetin' of the Camp--on Friday night," +he added. + +"I'll be there," said Tilghman. "And I'll try to find that piece of +Colonel Watterson's and send it over to you. I'd like mightily for you +to read it." + +He stood at the opening in the vines, with one slightly palsied hand +fumbling at a loose tendril as the judge passed down the short yard-walk +and out at the gate. Then he went back to his chair and sat down again. +All those little muscles in his jowls were jumping. + +Clay Street was no longer empty. Looking down its dusty length from +beneath the shelter of his palmleaf fan, Judge Priest saw here and there +groups of children--the little girls in prim and starchy white, the +little boys hobbling in the Sunday torment of shoes and stockings; and +all of them were moving toward a common center--Sunday school. Twice +again that day would the street show life--a little later when grown-ups +went their way to church, and again just after the noonday dinner, when +young people and servants, carrying trays and dishes under napkins, +would cross and recross from one house to another. The Sunday +interchange of special dainties between neighbors amounted in our town +to a ceremonial and a rite; but after that, until the cool of the +evening, the town would simmer in quiet, while everybody took Sunday +naps. + +With his fan, Judge Priest made an angry sawing motion in the air, as +though trying to fend off something disagreeable--a memory, perhaps, or +it might have been only a persistent midge. There were plenty of gnats +and midges about, for by now--even so soon--the dew was dried. The +leaves of the silver poplars were turning their white under sides up +like countless frog bellies, and the long, podded pendants of the +Injun-cigar trees hung dangling and still. It would be a hot day, sure +enough; already the judge felt wilted and worn out. + +In our town we had our tragedies that endured for years and, in the +small-town way, finally became institutions. There was the case of the +Burnleys. For thirty-odd years old Major Burnley lived on one side of +his house and his wife lived on the other, neither of them ever crossing +an imaginary dividing line that ran down the middle of the hall, having +for their medium of intercourse all that time a lean, spinster daughter, +in whose gray and barren life churchwork and these strange home duties +took the place that Nature had intended to be filled by a husband and by +babies and grandbabies. + +There was crazy Saul Vance, in his garb of a fantastic scarecrow, who +was forever starting somewhere and never going there--because, as sure +as he came to a place where two roads crossed, he could not make up his +mind which turn to take. In his youth a girl had jilted him, or a bank +had failed on him, or a horse had kicked him in the head--or maybe it +was all three of these things that had addled his poor brains. Anyhow he +went his pitiable, aimless way for years, taunted daily by small boys +who were more cruel than jungle beasts. How he lived nobody knew, but +when he died some of the men who as boys had jeered him turned out to be +his volunteer pallbearers. + +There was Mr. H. Jackman--Brother Jackman to all the town--who had been +our leading hatter once and rich besides, and in the days of his +affluence had given the Baptist church its bells. In his old age, when +he was dog-poor, he lived on charity, only it was not known by that +word, which is at once the sweetest and bitterest word in our tongue; +for Brother Jackman, always primped, always plump and well clad, would +go through the market to take his pick of what was there, and to the +Richland House bar for his toddies, and to Felsburg Brothers for new +garments when his old ones wore shabby--and yet never paid a cent for +anything; a kindly conspiracy on the part of the whole town enabling him +to maintain his self-respect to the last. Strangers in our town used to +take him for a retired banker--that's a fact! + +And there was old man Stackpole, who had killed his man--had killed him +in fair fight and had been acquitted--and yet walked quiet back streets +at all hours, a gray, silent shadow, and never slept except with a +bright light burning in his room. + +The tragedy of Mr. Edward Tilghman, though, and of Captain Abner G. +Tilghman, his elder brother, was both a tragedy and a mystery--the +biggest tragedy and the deepest mystery our town had ever known or ever +would know probably. All that anybody knew for certain was that for +upward of fifty years neither of them had spoken to the other, nor by +deed or look had given heed to the other. As boys, back in sixty-one, +they had gone out together. Side by side, each with his arm over the +other's shoulder, they had stood up with a hundred others to be sworn +into the service of the Confederate States of America; and on the +morning they went away Miss Sally May Ghoulson had given the older +brother her silk scarf off her shoulders to wear for a sash. Both the +brothers had liked her; but by this public act she made it plain which +of them was her choice. + +Then the company had marched off to the camp on the Tennessee border, +where the new troops were drilling; and as they marched some watchers +wept and others cheered--but the cheering predominated, for it was to be +only a sort of picnic anyhow--so everybody agreed. As the orators--who +mainly stayed behind--had pointed out, the Northern people would not +fight. And even if they should fight could not one Southerner whip four +Yankees? Certainly he could; any fool knew that much. In a month or two +months, or at most three months, they would all be tramping home again, +covered with glory and the spoils of war, and then--this by common +report and understanding--Miss Sally May Ghoulson and Abner Tilghman +would be married, with a big church wedding. + +The Yankees, however, unaccountably fought, and it was not a ninety-day +picnic after all. It was not any kind of a picnic. And when it was over, +after four years and a month, Miss Sally May Ghoulson and Abner Tilghman +did not marry. It was just before the battle of Chickamauga when the +other men in the company first noticed that the two Tilghmans had become +as strangers, and worse than strangers, to each other. They quit +speaking to each other then and there, and to any man's knowledge they +never spoke again. They served the war out, Abner rising just before +the end to a captaincy, Edward serving always as a private in the ranks. +In a dour, grim silence they took the fortunes of those last hard, +hopeless days and after the surrender down in Mississippi they came back +with the limping handful that was left of the company; and in age they +were all boys still--but in experience, men, and in suffering, +grandsires. + +Two months after they got back Miss Sally May Ghoulson was married to +Edward, the younger brother. Within a year she died, and after a decent +period of mourning Edward married a second time--only to be widowed +again after many years. His second wife bore him children and they +died--all except one, a daughter, who grew up and married badly; and +after her mother's death she came back to live with her deaf father and +minister to him. As for Captain Abner Tilghman, he never married--never, +so far as the watching eyes of the town might tell, looked with favor +upon another woman. And he never spoke to his brother or to any of his +brother's family--or his brother to him. + +With years the wall of silence they had builded up between them turned +to ice and the ice to stone. They lived on the same street, but never +did Edward enter Captain Abner's bank, never did Captain Abner pass +Edward's house--always he crossed over to the opposite side. They +belonged to the same Veterans' Camp--indeed there was only the one for +them to belong to; they voted the same ticket--straight Democratic; and +in the same church, the old Independent Presbyterian, they worshiped the +same God by the same creed, the older brother being an elder and the +younger a plain member--and yet never crossed looks. + +The town had come to accept this dumb and bitter feud as unchangeable +and eternal; in time people ceased even to wonder what its cause had +been, and in all the long years only one man had tried, before now, to +heal it up. When old Doctor Henrickson died, a young and ardent +clergyman, fresh from the Virginia theological school, came out to take +the vacant pulpit; and he, being filled with a high sense of his holy +calling, thought it shameful that such a thing should be in the +congregation. He went to see Captain Tilghman about it. He never went +but that once. Afterward it came out that Captain Tilghman had +threatened to walk out of church and never darken its doors again if the +minister ever dared to mention his brother's name in his presence. So +the young minister sorrowed, but obeyed, for the captain was rich and a +generous giver to the church. + +And he had grown richer with the years, and as he grew richer his +brother grew poorer--another man owned the drug store where Edward +Tilghman had failed. They had grown from young to middle-aged men and +from middle-aged men to old, infirm men; and first the grace of youth +and then the solidness of maturity had gone out of them and the +gnarliness of age had come upon them; one was halt of step and the other +was dull of ear; and the town through half a century of schooling had +accustomed itself to the situation and took it as a matter of course. So +it was and so it always would be--a tragedy and a mystery. It had not +been of any use when the minister interfered and it was of no use now. +Judge Priest, with the gesture of a man who is beaten, dropped the fan +on the porch floor, went into his darkened sitting room, stretched +himself wearily on a creaking horsehide sofa and called out to Jeff to +make him a mild toddy--one with plenty of ice in it. + + * * * * * + +On this same Sunday--or, anyhow, I like to fancy it was on this same +Sunday--at a point distant approximately nine hundred and seventy miles +in a northeasterly direction from Judge Priest's town, Corporal Jacob +Speck, late of Sigel's command, sat at the kitchen window of the +combined Speck and Engel apartment on East Eighty-fifth Street in the +Borough of Manhattan, New York. He was in his shirtsleeves; his tender +feet were incased in a pair of red-and-green carpet slippers. In the +angle of his left arm he held his youngest grandchild, aged one and a +half years, while his right hand carefully poised a china pipe, with a +bowl like an egg-cup and a stem like a fishpole. The corporal's blue +Hanoverian eyes, behind their thick-lensed glasses, were fixed upon a +comprehensive vista of East Eighty-fifth Street back yards and +clothespoles and fire escapes; but his thoughts were very much +elsewhere. + +Reared back there at seeming ease, the corporal none the less was not +happy in his mind. It was not that he so much minded being left at home +to mind the youngest baby while the rest of the family spent the +afternoon amid the Teutonic splendors of Smeltzer's Harlem River Casino, +with its acres of gravel walks and its whitewashed tree trunks, its +straggly flower beds and its high-collared beers. He was used to that +sort of thing. Since a plague of multiplying infirmities of the body +had driven him out of his job in the tax office, the corporal had not +done much except nurse the babies that occurred in the Speck-Engel +establishment with such unerring regularity. Sometimes, it is true, he +did slip down to the corner for maybe zwei glasses of beer and a game of +pinocle; but then, likely as not, there would come inopportunely a +towheaded descendant to tell him Mommer needed him back at the flat +right away to mind the baby while she went marketing or to the movies. + +He could endure that--he had to. What riled Corporal Jacob Speck on this +warm and sunny Sunday was a realization that he was not doing his share +at making the history of the period. The week before had befallen the +fiftieth anniversary of the marching away of his old regiment to the +front; there had been articles in the daily papers about it. Also, in +patriotic commemoration of the great event there had been a parade of +the wrinkled survivors--ninety-odd of them--following their tattered and +faded battle flag down Fifth Avenue past apathetic crowds, nine-tenths +of whom had been born since the war--in foreign lands mainly; and at +least half, if one might judge by their looks, did not know what the +parading was all about, and did not particularly care either. + +The corporal had not participated in the march of the veterans; he had +not even attended the banquet that followed it. True, the youngest +grandchild was at the moment cutting one of her largest jaw teeth and so +had required, for the time, an extraordinary and special amount of +minding; but the young lady's dental difficulty was not the sole reason +for his absence. Three weeks earlier the corporal had taken part in +Decoration Day, and certainly one parade a month was ample strain upon a +pair of legs such as he owned. He had returned home with his game leg +behaving more gamely then usual and with his sound one full of new and +painful kinks. Also, in honor of the occasion he had committed the error +of wearing a pair of stiff and inflexible new shoes; wherefore he had +worn his carpet slippers ever since. + +Missing the fiftieth anniversary was not the main point with the +corporal--that was merely the fortune of war, to be accepted with +fortitude and with no more than a proper and natural amount of grumbling +by one who had been a good soldier and was now a good citizen; but for +days before the event, and daily ever since, divers members of the old +regiment had been writing pieces to the papers--the German papers and +the English-printing papers too--long pieces, telling of the trip to +Washington, and then on into Virginia and Tennessee, speaking of this +campaign and that and this battle and that. And because there was just +now a passing wave of interest in Civil War matters, the papers had +printed these contributions, thereby reflecting much glory on the +writers thereof. But Corporal Speck, reading these things, had marveled +deeply that sane men should have such disgustingly bad memories; for his +own recollection of these stirring and epochal events differed most +widely from the reminiscent narration of each misguided chronicler. + +It was, indeed, a shameful thing that the most important occurrences of +the whole war should be so shockingly mangled and mishandled in the +retelling. They were so grievously wrong, those other veterans, and he +was so absolutely right. He was always right in these matters. Only the +night before, during a merciful respite from his nursing duties, he +had, in Otto Wittenpen's back barroom, spoken across the rim of a tall +stein with some bitterness of certain especially grievous misstatements +of plain fact on the part of certain faulty-minded comrades. In reply +Otto had said, in a rather sneering tone the corporal thought: + +"Say, then, Jacob, why don't you yourself write a piece to the paper +telling about this regiment of yours--the way it was?" + +"I will. Tomorrow I will do so without fail," he had said, the ambition +of authorship suddenly stirring within him. Now, however, as he sat at +the kitchen window, he gloomed in his disappointment, for he had tried +and he knew he had not the gift of the written line. A good soldier he +had been--yes, none better--and a good citizen, and in his day a capable +and painstaking doorkeeper in the tax office; but he could not write his +own story. That morning, when the youngest grandchild slept and his +daughter and his daughter's husband and the brood of his older +grandchildren were all at the Lutheran church over in the next block, he +sat himself down to compose his article to the paper; but the words +would not come--or, at least, after the first line or two they would not +come. + +The mental pictures of those stirring great days when he marched off on +his two good legs--both good legs then--to fight for the country whose +language he could not yet speak was there in bright and living colors; +but the sorry part of it was he could not clothe them in language. In +the trash box under the sink a dozen crumpled sheets of paper testified +to his failure, and now, alone with the youngest Miss Engel, he brooded +over it and got low in his mind and let his pipe go smack out. And right +then and there, with absolutely no warning at all, there came to him, as +you might say from the clear sky, a great idea--an idea so magnificent +that he almost dropped the youngest Miss Engel off his lap at the +splendid shock of it. + +With solicitude he glanced down at the small, moist, pink, lumpy bundle +of prickly heat and sore gums. Despite the sudden jostle the young lady +slept steadily on. Very carefully he laid his pipe aside and very +carefully he got upon his feet, jouncing his charge soothingly up and +down, and with deftness he committed her small person to the crib that +stood handily by. She stirred fretfully, but did not wake. The corporal +steered his gimpy leg and his rheumatic one out of the kitchen, which +was white with scouring and as clean as a new pin, into the rearmost and +smallest of the three sleeping rooms that mainly made up the Speck-Engel +apartment. + +The bed, whereon of nights Corporal Speck reposed with a bucking bronco +of an eight-year-old grandson for a bedmate, was jammed close against +the plastering, under the one small window set diagonally in a jog in +the wall, and opening out upon an airshaft, like a chimney. Time had +been when the corporal had a room and a bed all his own; that was before +the family began to grow so fast in its second generation and while he +still held a place of lucrative employment at the tax office. + +As he got down upon his knees beside the bed the old man uttered a +little groan of discomfort. He felt about in the space underneath and +drew out a small tin trunk, rusted on its corners and dented in its +sides. He made a laborious selection of keys from a key-ring he got out +of his pocket, unlocked the trunk and lifted out a heavy top tray. The +tray contained, among other things, such treasures as his naturalization +papers, his pension papers, a photograph of his dead wife, and a small +bethumbed passbook of the East Side Germania Savings Bank. Underneath +was a black fatigue hat with a gold cord round its crown, a neatly +folded blue uniform coat, with the G. A. R. bronze showing in its +uppermost lapel, and below that, in turn, the suit of neat black the +corporal wore on high state occasions and would one day wear to be +buried in. Pawing and digging, he worked his hands to the very bottom, +and then, with a little grunt, he heaved out the thing he wanted--the +one trophy, except a stiffened kneecap and an honorable record, this old +man had brought home from the South. It was a captured Confederate +knapsack, flattened and flabby. Its leather was dry-rotted with age and +the brass C. S. A. on the outer flap was gangrened and sunken in; the +flap curled up stiffly, like an old shoe sole. + +The crooked old fingers undid a buckle fastening and from the musty and +odorous interior of the knapsack withdrew a letter, in a queer-looking +yellowed envelope, with a queer-looking stamp upon the upper right-hand +corner and a faint superscription upon its face. The three sheets of +paper he slid out of the envelope were too old even to rustle, but the +close writing upon them in a brownish, faded ink was still plainly to be +made out. + +Corporal Speck replaced the knapsack in its place at the very bottom, +put the tray back in its place, closed the trunk and locked it and +shoved it under the bed. The trunk resisted slightly and he lost one +carpet slipper and considerable breath in the struggle. Limping back to +the kitchen and seeing that little Miss Engel still slumbered, he eased +his frame into a chair and composed himself to literary composition, not +in the least disturbed by the shouts of roistering sidewalk comedians +that filtered up to him from down below in front of the house, or by the +distant clatter of intermittent traffic over the cobbly spine of Second +Avenue, half a block away. For some time he wrote, with a most scratchy +pen; and this is what he wrote: + + "TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN, CITY. + + "_Dear Sir:_ The undersigned would state that he served two years + and nine months--until wounded in action--in the Fighting Two + Hundred and Tenth New York Infantry, and has been much interested + to see what other comrades wrote for the papers regarding same in + connection with the Rebellion War of North and South respectively. + I would state that during the battle of Chickamauga I was for a + while lying near by to a Confederate soldier--name unknown--who + was dying on account of a wound in the chest. By his request I + gave him a drink of water from my canteen, he dying shortly + thereafter. Being myself wounded--right knee shattered by a + Minie ball--I was removed to a field hospital; but before doing + so I brought away this man's knapsack for a keepsake of the + occasion. Some years later I found in said knapsack a letter, + which previous to then was overlooked by me. I inclose herewith a + copy of said letter, which it may be interesting for reading + purposes by surviving comrades. + + "Respectfully yours, + + "JACOB SPECK, + + "Late Corporal L Company, + + "Fighting Two Hundred and Tenth New York, U. S. A." + +With deliberation and squeaky emphasis the pen progressed slowly across +the paper, while the corporal, with his left hand, held flat the dead +man's ancient letter before him, intent on copying it. Hard words +puzzled him and long words daunted him, and he was making a long job of +it when there were steps in the hall without. There entered breezily +Miss Hortense Engel, who was the oldest of all the multiplying Engels, +pretty beyond question and every inch American, having the gift of +wearing Lower Sixth Avenue stock designs in a way to make them seem +Upper Fifth Avenue models. Miss Engel's face was pleasantly flushed; she +had just parted lingeringly from her steady company, whose name was Mr. +Lawrence J. McLaughlin, in the lower hallway, which is the trysting +place and courting place of tenement-dwelling sweethearts, and now she +had come to make ready the family's cold Sunday night tea. At sight of +her the corporal had another inspiration--his second within the hour. +His brow smoothed and he fetched a sigh of relief. + +"'Lo, grosspops!" she said. "How's every little thing? The kiddo all +right?" + +She unpinned a Sunday hat that was plumed like a hearse and slipped on +a long apron that covered her from Robespierre bib to hobble hem. + +"Girl," said her grandfather, "would you make tomorrow for me at the +office a copy of this letter on the typewriter machine?" + +He spoke in German and she answered in New-Yorkese, while her nimble +fingers wrestled with the task of back-buttoning her apron. + +"Sure thing! It won't take hardly a minute to rattle that off. +Funny-looking old thing!" she went on, taking up the creased and faded +original. "Who wrote it? And whatcher goin' to do with it, grosspops?" + +"That," he told her, "is mine own business! It is for you, please, to +make the copy and bring both to me tomorrow, the letter and also the +copy." + +So on Monday morning, when the rush of taking dictation at the office of +the Great American Hosiery Company, in Broome Street, was well abated, +the competent Miss Hortense copied the letter, and that same evening her +grandfather mailed it to the Sun, accompanied by his own introduction. +The Sun straightway printed it without change and--what was still +better--with the sender's name spelled out in capital letters; and that +night, at the place down by the corner, Corporal Jacob Speck was a +prophet not without honor in his own country--much honor, in fact, +accrued. + +If you have read certain other stories of mine you may remember that, +upon a memorable occasion, Judge William Pitman Priest made a trip to +New York and while there had dealings with a Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee, a +promoter of gas and other hot-air propositions; and that during the +course of his stay in the metropolis he made the acquaintance of one +Malley, a Sun reporter. This had happened some years back, but Malley +was still on the staff of the Sun. It happened also that, going through +the paper to clip out and measure up his own space, Malley came upon the +corporal's contribution. Glancing over it idly, he caught the name, +twice or thrice repeated, of the town where Judge Priest lived. So he +bundled together a couple of copies and sent them South with a short +letter; and therefore it came about in due season, through the good +offices of the United States Post-office Department, that these +enclosures reached the judge on a showery afternoon as he loafed upon +his wide front porch, waiting for his supper. + +First, he read Malley's letter and was glad to hear from Malley. With a +quickened interest he ran a plump thumb under the wrappings of the two +close-rolled papers, opened out one of them at page ten and read the +opening statement of Corporal Jacob Speck, for whom instantly the judge +conceived a long-distance fondness. Next he came to the letter that Miss +Hortense Engel had so accurately transcribed, and at the very first +words of it he sat up straighter, with a surprised and gratified little +grunt; for he had known them both--the writer of that letter and its +recipient. One still lived in his memory as a red-haired girl with a +pert, malicious face, and the other as a stripling youth in a ragged +gray uniform. And he had known most of those whose names studded the +printed lines so thickly. Indeed, some of them he still knew--only now +they were old men and old women--faded, wrinkled bucks and belles of a +far-distant day. + +As he read the first words it came back to the judge, almost with the +jolting emphasis of a new and fresh sensation, that in the days of his +own youth he had never liked the girl who wrote that letter or the man +who received it. But she was dead this many and many a year--why, she +must have died soon after she wrote this very letter--the date proved +that--and he, the man, had fallen at Chickamauga, taking his death in +front like a soldier; and surely that settled everything and made all +things right! But the letter--that was the main thing. His old blue eyes +skipped nimbly behind the glasses that saddled the tip of his plump pink +nose, and the old judge read it--just such a letter as he himself had +received many a time; just such a wartime letter as uncounted thousands +of soldiers North and South received from their sweethearts and read and +reread by the light of flickering campfires and carried afterward in +their knapsacks through weary miles of marching. + +It was crammed with the small-town gossip of a small town that was but +little more than a memory now--telling how, because he would not +volunteer, a hapless youth had been waylaid by a dozen high-spirited +girls and overpowered, and dressed in a woman's shawl and a woman's +poke bonnet, so that he left town with his shame between two suns; +how, since the Yankees had come, sundry faithless females were +friendly--actually friendly, this being underscored--with the more +personable of the young Yankee officers; how half the town was in +mourning for a son or brother dead or wounded; how a new and sweetly +sentimental song, called Rosalie, the Prairie Flower, was being much +sung at the time--and had it reached the army yet? how old Mrs. Hobbs +had been exiled to Canada for seditious acts and language and had +departed northward between two files of bluecoats, reviling the Yankees +with an unbitted tongue at every step; how So-and-So had died or married +or gone refugeeing below the enemy's line into safely Southern +territory; how this thing had happened and that thing had not. + +The old judge read on and on, catching gladly at names that kindled a +tenderly warm glow of half-forgotten memories in his soul, until he came +to the last paragraph of all; and then, as he comprehended the intent of +it in all its barbed and venomed malice, he stood suddenly erect, with +the outspread paper shaking in his hard grip. For now, coming back to +him by so strange a way across fifty years of silence and +misunderstanding, he read there the answer to the town's oldest, biggest +tragedy and knew what it was that all this time had festered, like +buried thorns, in the flesh of those two men, his comrades and friends. +He dropped the paper, and up and down the wide, empty porch he stumped +on his short stout legs, shaking with the shock of revelation and with +indignation and pity for the blind and bitter uselessness of it all. + +"Ah hah!" he said to himself over and over again understandingly. "Ah +hah!" And then: "Next to a mean man, a mean woman is the meanest thing +in this whole created world, I reckin. I ain't sure but what she's the +meanest of the two. And to think of what them two did between 'em--she +writin' that hellish black lyin' tale to 'Lonzo Pike and he puttin' off +hotfoot to Abner Tilghman to poison his mind with it and set him like a +flint against his own flesh and blood! And wasn't it jest like Lon Pike +to go and git himself killed the next day after he got that there +letter! And wasn't it jest like her to up and die before the truth could +be brought home to her! And wasn't it like them two stubborn, set, +contrary, close-mouthed Tilghman boys to go 'long through all these +years, without neither one of 'em ever offerin' to make or take an +explanation!" His tone changed. "Oh, ain't it been a pitiful thing! And +all so useless! But--oh, thank the Lord--it ain't too late to mend it +part way anyhow! Thank God, it ain't too late for that!" + +Exulting now, he caught up the paper he had dropped, and with it +crumpled in his pudgy fist was half-way down the gravel walk, bound for +the little cottage snuggled in its vine ambush across Clay Street before +a better and a bigger inspiration caught up with him and halted him +midway of an onward stride. + +Was not this the second Friday in the month? It certainly was. And would +not the Camp be meeting tonight in regular semimonthly session at +Kamleiter's Hall? It certainly would. For just a moment Judge Priest +considered the proposition. He slapped his linen clad flank gleefully, +and his round old face, which had been knotted with resolution, broke up +into a wrinkly, ample smile; he spun on his heel and hurried back into +the house and to the telephone in the hall. For half an hour, more or +less, Judge Priest was busy at that telephone, calling in a high, +excited voice, first for one number and then for another. While he did +this his supper grew cold on the table, and in the dining room Jeff, the +white-clad, fidgeted and out in the kitchen Aunt Dilsey, the turbaned, +fumed--but, at Kamleiter's Hall that night at eight, Judge Priest's +industry was in abundant fulness rewarded. + +Once upon a time Gideon K. Irons Camp claimed a full two hundred +members, but that had been when it was first organized. Now there were +in good standing less than twenty. Of these twenty, fifteen sat on the +hard wooden chairs when Judge Priest rapped with his metal spectacle +case for order, and that fifteen meant all who could travel out at +nights. Doctor Lake was there, and Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, the faithful +and inevitable. It was the biggest turnout the Camp had had in a year. + +Far over on one side, cramped down in a chair, was Captain Abner +Tilghman, feeble and worn-looking. His buggy horse stood hitched by the +curb downstairs. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby had gone to his house for him and +on the plea of business of vital moment had made him come with him. +Almost directly across the middle aisle on the other side sat Mr. Edward +Tilghman. Nobody had to go for him. He always came to a regular meeting +of the Camp, even though he heard the proceedings only in broken bits. + +The adjutant called the roll and those present answered, each one to his +name; and mainly the voices sounded bent and sagged, like the bodies of +their owners. A keen onlooker might have noticed a sort of tremulous, +joyous impatience, which filled all save two of these old, gray men, +pushing the preliminaries forward with uncommon speed. They fidgeted in +their places. + +Presently Judge Priest cleared his throat of a persistent huskiness and +stood up. + +"Before we proceed to the regular routine," he piped, "I desire to +present a certain matter to a couple of our members." He came down off +the little platform, where the flags were draped, with a step that was +almost light, and into Captain Abner Tilghman's hand he put a copy of a +city paper, turned and folded at a certain place, where a column of +printed matter was scored about with heavy pencil bracketings. "Cap'n," +he said, "as a personal favor to me, suh, would you please read this +here article?--the one that's marked"--he pointed with his finger--"not +aloud--read it to yourself, please." + +It was characteristic of the paralytic to say nothing. Without a word he +adjusted his glasses and without a word he began to read. So instantly +intent was he that he did not see what followed next--and that was Judge +Priest crossing over to Mr. Edward Tilghman's side with another copy of +a paper in his hand. + +"Ed," he bade him, "read this here article, won't you? Read it clear +through to the end--it might interest you maybe." The deaf man looked up +at him wonderingly, but took the paper in his slightly palsied hand and +bent his head close above the printed sheet. + +Judge Priest stood in the middle aisle, making no move to go back to his +own place. He watched the two silent readers. All the others watched +them too. They read on, making slow progress, for the light was poor and +their eyes were poor. And the watchers could hardly contain themselves; +they could hardly wait. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby kept bobbing up and down +like a pudgy jack-in-the-box that is slightly stiff in its joints. A +small, restrained rustle of bodies accompanied the rustle of the folded +newspapers held in shaky hands. + +Unconscious of all scrutiny, the brothers read on. Perhaps because he +had started first--perhaps because his glasses were the more expensive +and presumably therefore the more helpful--Captain Abner Tilghman came +to the concluding paragraph first. He read it through--and then Judge +Priest turned his head away, for a moment almost regretting he had +chosen so public a place for this thing. + +He looked back again in time to see Captain Abner getting upon his feet. +Dragging his dead leg behind him, the paralytic crossed the bare floor +to where his brother's gray head was bent to his task. And at his side +he halted, making no sound or sign, but only waiting. He waited there, +trembling all over, until the sitter came to the end of the column and +read what was there--and lifted a face all glorified with a perfect +understanding. + +"Eddie!" said the older man--"Eddie!" He uttered a name of boyhood +affection that none there had heard uttered for fifty years nearly; and +it was as though a stone had been rolled away from a tomb--as though out +of the grave of a dead past a voice had been resurrected. "Eddie!" he +said a third time, pleadingly, abjectly, humbly, craving for +forgiveness. + +"Brother Abner!" said the other man. "Oh, Brother Abner!" he said--and +that was all he did say--all he had need to say, for he was on his feet +now, reaching out with wide-spread, shaking arms. + +Sergeant Jimmy Bagby tried to start a cheer, but could not make it come +out of his throat--only a clicking, squeaking kind of sound came. As a +cheer it was a miserable failure. + +Side by side, each with his inner arm tight gripped about the other, the +brothers, bareheaded, turned their backs upon their friends and went +away. Slowly they passed out through the doorway into the darkness of +the stair landing, and the members of the Gideon K. Irons Camp were all +up on their feet. + +"Mind that top step, Abner!" they heard the younger man say. "Wait! I'll +help you down." + +That was all that was heard, except a scuffling sound of uncertainly +placed feet, growing fainter and fainter as the two brothers passed down +the long stairs of Kamleiter's Hall and out into the night--that was +all, unless you would care to take cognizance of a subdued little chorus +such as might be produced by twelve or thirteen elderly men snuffling in +a large bare room. As commandant of the Camp it was fitting, perhaps, +that Judge Priest should speak first. + +"The trouble with this here Camp is jest this," he said: "it's got a lot +of snifflin' old fools in it that don't know no better than to bust out +cryin' when they oughter be happy!" And then, as if to show how deeply +he felt the shame of such weakness on the part of others, Judge Priest +blew his nose with great violence, and for a space of minutes +industriously mopped at his indignant eyes with an enormous pocket +handkerchief. + + * * * * * + +In accordance with a rule, Jeff Poindexter waited up for his employer. +Jeff expected him by nine-thirty at the latest; but it was actually +getting along toward ten-thirty before Jeff, who had been dozing lightly +in the dim-lit hall, oblivious to the fanged attentions of some large +mosquitoes, roused suddenly as he heard the sound of a rambling but +familiar step clunking along the wooden sidewalk of Clay Street. The +latch on the front gate clicked, and as Jeff poked his nose out of the +front door he heard, down the aisle of trees that bordered the gravel +walk, the voice of his master uplifted in solitary song. + +In the matter of song the judge had a peculiarity. It made no difference +what the words might be or the theme--he sang every song and all songs +to a fine, high, tuneless little tune of his own. At this moment Judge +Priest, as Jeff gathered, was showing a wide range of selection. One +second he was announcing that his name it was Joe Bowers and he was all +the way from Pike, and the next he was stating, for the benefit of all +who might care to hear these details, that they--presumably certain +horses--were bound to run all night--bound to run all day; so you could +bet on the bobtailed nag and he'd bet on the bay. Nearer to the porch +steps it boastingly transpired that somebody had jumped aboard the +telegraf and steered her by the triggers, whereat the lightnin' flew and +'lectrified and killed ten thousand niggers! But even so general a +catastrophe could not weigh down the singer's spirits. As he put a +fumbling foot upon the lowermost step of the porch, he threw his head +far back and shrilly issued the following blanket invitation to ladies +resident in a far-away district: + + _Oh, Bowery gals, won't you come out tonight? + Won't you come out tonight? + Oh, Bowery gals, won't you come out tonight, + And dance by the light of the moon? + I danced with a gal with a hole in her stockin'; + And her heel it kep' a-rockin'--kep' a-rockin'! + She was the purtiest gal in the room!_ + +Jeff pulled the front door wide open. The song stopped and Judge Priest +stood in the opening, teetering a little on his heels. His face was all +a blushing pinky glow. + +"Evenin', jedge!" greeted Jeff. "You're late, suh!" + +"Jeff," said Judge Priest slowly, "it's a beautiful evenin'." + +Amazed, Jeff stared at him. As a matter of fact, the drizzle of the +afternoon had changed, soon after dark, to a steady downpour. The +judge's limpened hat brim dripped raindrops and his shoulders were +sopping wet, but Jeff had yet to knowingly and wilfully contradict a +prominent white citizen. + +"Yas, suh!" he said, half affirmatively, half questioningly. "Is it?" + +"It is so!" said Judge Priest. "Every star in the sky shines like a +diamond! Jeff, it's the most beautiful evenin' I ever remember!" + + + + +VIII + +FISHHEAD + + +It goes past the powers of my pen to try to describe Reelfoot Lake for +you so that you, reading this, will get the picture of it in your mind +as I have it in mine. For Reelfoot Lake is like no other lake that I +know anything about. It is an afterthought of Creation. + +The rest of this continent was made and had dried in the sun for +thousands of years--for millions of years for all I know--before +Reelfoot came to be. It's the newest big thing in nature on this +hemisphere probably, for it was formed by the great earthquake of 1811, +just a little more than a hundred years ago. That earthquake of 1811 +surely altered the face of the earth on the then far frontier of this +country. It changed the course of rivers, it converted hills into what +are now the sunk lands of three states, and it turned the solid ground +to jelly and made it roll in waves like the sea. And in the midst of +the retching of the land and the vomiting of the waters it depressed to +varying depths a section of the earth crust sixty miles long, taking it +down--trees, hills, hollows and all; and a crack broke through to the +Mississippi River so that for three days the river ran up stream, +filling the hole. + +The result was the largest lake south of the Ohio, lying mostly in +Tennessee, but extending up across what is now the Kentucky line, and +taking its name from a fancied resemblance in its outline to the splay, +reeled foot of a cornfield negro. Niggerwool Swamp, not so far away, may +have got its name from the same man who christened Reelfoot; at least so +it sounds. + +Reelfoot is, and has always been, a lake of mystery. In places it is +bottomless. Other places the skeletons of the cypress trees that went +down when the earth sank still stand upright, so that if the sun shines +from the right quarter and the water is less muddy than common, a man +peering face downward into its depths sees, or thinks he sees, down +below him the bare top-limbs upstretching like drowned men's fingers, +all coated with the mud of years and bandaged with pennons of the green +lake slime. In still other places the lake is shallow for long +stretches, no deeper than breast deep to a man, but dangerous because of +the weed growths and the sunken drifts which entangle a swimmer's limbs. +Its banks are mainly mud, its waters are muddied too, being a rich +coffee color in the spring and a copperish yellow in the summer, and the +trees along its shore are mud colored clear up to their lower limbs +after the spring floods, when the dried sediment covers their trunks +with a thick, scrofulous-looking coat. + +There are stretches of unbroken woodland around it and slashes where the +cypress knees rise countlessly like headstones and footstones for the +dead snags that rot in the soft ooze. There are deadenings with the +lowland corn growing high and rank below and the bleached, +fire-blackened girdled trees rising above, barren of leaf and limb. +There are long, dismal flats where in the spring the clotted frog-spawn +clings like patches of white mucus among the weed stalks and at night +the turtles crawl out to lay clutches of perfectly round, white eggs +with tough, rubbery shells in the sand. There are bayous leading off to +nowhere and sloughs that wind aimlessly, like great, blind worms, to +finally join the big river that rolls its semi-liquid torrents a few +miles to the westward. + +So Reelfoot lies there, flat in the bottoms, freezing lightly in the +winter, steaming torridly in the summer, swollen in the spring when the +woods have turned a vivid green and the buffalo gnats by the million and +the billion fill the flooded hollows with their pestilential buzzing, +and in the fall ringed about gloriously with all the colors which the +first frost brings--gold of hickory, yellow-russet of sycamore, red of +dogwood and ash and purple-black of sweet-gum. + +But the Reelfoot country has its uses. It is the best game and fish +country, natural or artificial, that is left in the South today. In +their appointed seasons the duck and the geese flock in, and even +semi-tropical birds, like the brown pelican and the Florida snake-bird, +have been known to come there to nest. Pigs, gone back to wildness, +range the ridges, each razor-backed drove captained by a gaunt, savage, +slab-sided old boar. By night the bull frogs, inconceivably big and +tremendously vocal, bellow under the banks. + +It is a wonderful place for fish--bass and crappie and perch and the +snouted buffalo fish. How these edible sorts live to spawn and how their +spawn in turn live to spawn again is a marvel, seeing how many of the +big fish-eating cannibal fish there are in Reelfoot. Here, bigger than +anywhere else, you find the garfish, all bones and appetite and horny +plates, with a snout like an alligator, the nearest link, naturalists +say, between the animal life of today and the animal life of the +Reptilian Period. The shovel-nose cat, really a deformed kind of +freshwater sturgeon, with a great fan-shaped membranous plate jutting +out from his nose like a bowsprit, jumps all day in the quiet places +with mighty splashing sounds, as though a horse had fallen into the +water. On every stranded log the huge snapping turtles lie on sunny days +in groups of four and six, baking their shells black in the sun, with +their little snaky heads raised watchfully, ready to slip noiselessly +off at the first sound of oars grating in the row-locks. + +But the biggest of them all are the catfish. These are monstrous +creatures, these catfish of Reelfoot--scaleless, slick things, with +corpsy, dead eyes and poisonous fins like javelins and long whiskers +dangling from the sides of their cavernous heads. Six and seven feet +long they grow to be and to weigh two hundred pounds or more, and they +have mouths wide enough to take in a man's foot or a man's fist and +strong enough to break any hook save the strongest and greedy enough to +eat anything, living or dead or putrid, that the horny jaws can master. +Oh, but they are wicked things, and they tell wicked tales of them down +there. They call them man-eaters and compare them, in certain of their +habits, to sharks. + +Fishhead was of a piece with this setting. He fitted into it as an acorn +fits its cup. All his life he had lived on Reelfoot, always in the one +place, at the mouth of a certain slough. He had been born there, of a +negro father and a half-breed Indian mother, both of them now dead, and +the story was that before his birth his mother was frightened by one of +the big fish, so that the child came into the world most hideously +marked. Anyhow, Fishhead was a human monstrosity, the veritable +embodiment of nightmare. He had the body of a man--a short, stocky, +sinewy body--but his face was as near to being the face of a great fish +as any face could be and yet retain some trace of human aspect. His +skull sloped back so abruptly that he could hardly be said to have a +forehead at all; his chin slanted off right into nothing. His eyes were +small and round with shallow, glazed, pale-yellow pupils, and they were +set wide apart in his head and they were unwinking and staring, like a +fish's eyes. His nose was no more than a pair of tiny slits in the +middle of the yellow mask. His mouth was the worst of all. It was the +awful mouth of a catfish, lipless and almost inconceivably wide, +stretching from side to side. Also when Fishhead became a man grown his +likeness to a fish increased, for the hair upon his face grew out into +two tightly kinked, slender pendants that drooped down either side of +the mouth like the beards of a fish. + +If he had any other name than Fishhead, none excepting he knew it. As +Fishhead he was known and as Fishhead he answered. Because he knew the +waters and the woods of Reelfoot better than any other man there, he was +valued as a guide by the city men who came every year to hunt or fish; +but there were few such jobs that Fishhead would take. Mainly he kept +to himself, tending his corn patch, netting the lake, trapping a little +and in season pot hunting for the city markets. His neighbors, +ague-bitten whites and malaria-proof negroes alike, left him to himself. +Indeed for the most part they had a superstitious fear of him. So he +lived alone, with no kith nor kin, nor even a friend, shunning his kind +and shunned by them. + +His cabin stood just below the state line, where Mud Slough runs into +the lake. It was a shack of logs, the only human habitation for four +miles up or down. Behind it the thick timber came shouldering right up +to the edge of Fishhead's small truck patch, enclosing it in thick shade +except when the sun stood just overhead. He cooked his food in a +primitive fashion, outdoors, over a hole in the soggy earth or upon the +rusted red ruin of an old cook stove, and he drank the saffron water of +the lake out of a dipper made of a gourd, faring and fending for +himself, a master hand at skiff and net, competent with duck gun and +fish spear, yet a creature of affliction and loneliness, part savage, +almost amphibious, set apart from his fellows, silent and suspicious. + +In front of his cabin jutted out a long fallen cottonwood trunk, lying +half in and half out of the water, its top side burnt by the sun and +worn by the friction of Fishhead's bare feet until it showed countless +patterns of tiny scrolled lines, its under side black and rotted and +lapped at unceasingly by little waves like tiny licking tongues. Its +farther end reached deep water. And it was a part of Fishhead, for no +matter how far his fishing and trapping might take him in the daytime, +sunset would find him back there, his boat drawn up on the bank and he +on the outer end of this log. From a distance men had seen him there +many times, sometimes squatted, motionless as the big turtles that would +crawl upon its dipping tip in his absence, sometimes erect and vigilant +like a creek crane, his misshapen yellow form outlined against the +yellow sun, the yellow water, the yellow banks--all of them yellow +together. + +If the Reelfooters shunned Fishhead by day they feared him by night and +avoided him as a plague, dreading even the chance of a casual meeting. +For there were ugly stories about Fishhead--stories which all the +negroes and some of the whites believed. They said that a cry which had +been heard just before dusk and just after, skittering across the +darkened waters, was his calling cry to the big cats, and at his bidding +they came trooping in, and that in their company he swam in the lake on +moonlight nights, sporting with them, diving with them, even feeding +with them on what manner of unclean things they fed. The cry had been +heard many times, that much was certain, and it was certain also that +the big fish were noticeably thick at the mouth of Fishhead's slough. +No native Reelfooter, white or black, would willingly wet a leg or an +arm there. + +Here Fishhead had lived and here he was going to die. The Baxters were +going to kill him, and this day in mid-summer was to be the time of the +killing. The two Baxters--Jake and Joel--were coming in their dugout to +do it. This murder had been a long time in the making. The Baxters had +to brew their hate over a slow fire for months before it reached the +pitch of action. They were poor whites, poor in everything--repute and +worldly goods and standing--a pair of fever-ridden squatters who lived +on whisky and tobacco when they could get it, and on fish and cornbread +when they couldn't. + +The feud itself was of months' standing. Meeting Fishhead one day in the +spring on the spindly scaffolding of the skiff landing at Walnut Log, +and being themselves far overtaken in liquor and vainglorious with a +bogus alcoholic substitute for courage, the brothers had accused him, +wantonly and without proof, of running their trot-line and stripping it +of the hooked catch--an unforgivable sin among the water dwellers and +the shanty boaters of the South. Seeing that he bore this accusation in +silence, only eyeing them steadfastly, they had been emboldened then to +slap his face, whereupon he turned and gave them both the beating of +their lives--bloodying their noses and bruising their lips with hard +blows against their front teeth, and finally leaving them, mauled and +prone, in the dirt. Moreover, in the onlookers a sense of the +everlasting fitness of things had triumphed over race prejudice and +allowed them--two freeborn, sovereign whites--to be licked by a nigger. + +Therefore, they were going to get the nigger. The whole thing had been +planned out amply. They were going to kill him on his log at sundown. +There would be no witnesses to see it, no retribution to follow after +it. The very ease of the undertaking made them forget even their inborn +fear of the place of Fishhead's habitation. + +For more than an hour now they had been coming from their shack across a +deeply indented arm of the lake. Their dugout, fashioned by fire and adz +and draw-knife from the bole of a gum tree, moved through the water as +noiselessly as a swimming mallard, leaving behind it a long, wavy trail +on the stilled waters. Jake, the better oarsman sat flat in the stern of +the round-bottomed craft, paddling with quick, splashless strokes. Joel, +the better shot, was squatted forward. There was a heavy, rusted duck +gun between his knees. + +Though their spying upon the victim had made them certain sure he would +not be about the shore for hours, a doubled sense of caution led them to +hug closely the weedy banks. They slid along the shore like shadows, +moving so swiftly and in such silence that the watchful mud turtles +barely turned their snaky heads as they passed. So, a full hour before +the time, they came slipping around the mouth of the slough and made for +a natural ambuscade which the mixed breed had left within a stone's jerk +of his cabin to his own undoing. + +Where the slough's flow joined deeper water a partly uprooted tree was +stretched, prone from shore, at the top still thick and green with +leaves that drew nourishment from the earth in which the half-uncovered +roots yet held, and twined about with an exuberance of trumpet vines and +wild fox-grapes. All about was a huddle of drift--last year's +cornstalks, shreddy strips of bark, chunks of rotted weed, all the +riffle and dunnage of a quiet eddy. Straight into this green clump +glided the dugout and swung, broadside on, against the protecting trunk +of the tree, hidden from the inner side by the intervening curtains of +rank growth, just as the Baxters had intended it should be hidden, when +days before in their scouting they marked this masked place of waiting +and included it, then and there, in the scope of their plans. + +There had been no hitch or mishap. No one had been abroad in the late +afternoon to mark their movements--and in a little while Fishhead ought +to be due. Jake's woodman's eye followed the downward swing of the sun +speculatively. The shadows, thrown shoreward, lengthened and slithered +on the small ripples. The small noises of the day died out; the small +noises of the coming night began to multiply. The green-bodied flies +went away and big mosquitoes, with speckled gray legs, came to take the +places of the flies. The sleepy lake sucked at the mud banks with small +mouthing sounds as though it found the taste of the raw mud agreeable. A +monster crawfish, big as a chicken lobster, crawled out of the top of +his dried mud chimney and perched himself there, an armored sentinel on +the watchtower. Bull bats began to flitter back and forth above the tops +of the trees. A pudgy muskrat, swimming with head up, was moved to sidle +off briskly as he met a cotton-mouth moccasin snake, so fat and swollen +with summer poison that it looked almost like a legless lizard as it +moved along the surface of the water in a series of slow torpid s's. +Directly above the head of either of the waiting assassins a compact +little swarm of midges hung, holding to a sort of kite-shaped formation. + +A little more time passed and Fishhead came out of the woods at the +back, walking swiftly, with a sack over his shoulder. For a few seconds +his deformities showed in the clearing, then the black inside of the +cabin swallowed him up. By now the sun was almost down. Only the red nub +of it showed above the timber line across the lake, and the shadows lay +inland a long way. Out beyond, the big cats were stirring, and the great +smacking sounds as their twisting bodies leaped clear and fell back in +the water came shoreward in a chorus. + +But the two brothers in their green covert gave heed to nothing except +the one thing upon which their hearts were set and their nerves tensed. +Joel gently shoved his gun-barrels across the log, cuddling the stock to +his shoulder and slipping two fingers caressingly back and forth upon +the triggers. Jake held the narrow dugout steady by a grip upon a +fox-grape tendril. + +A little wait and then the finish came. Fishhead emerged from the cabin +door and came down the narrow footpath to the water and out upon the +water on his log. He was barefooted and bareheaded, his cotton shirt +open down the front to show his yellow neck and breast, his dungaree +trousers held about his waist by a twisted tow string. His broad splay +feet, with the prehensile toes outspread, gripped the polished curve of +the log as he moved along its swaying, dipping surface until he came to +its outer end and stood there erect, his chest filling, his chinless +face lifted up and something of mastership and dominion in his poise. +And then--his eye caught what another's eyes might have missed--the +round, twin ends of the gun barrels, the fixed gleams of Joel's eyes, +aimed at him through the green tracery. + +In that swift passage of time, too swift almost to be measured by +seconds, realization flashed all through him, and he threw his head +still higher and opened wide his shapeless trap of a mouth, and out +across the lake he sent skittering and rolling his cry. And in his cry +was the laugh of a loon, and the croaking bellow of a frog, and the bay +of a hound, all the compounded night noises of the lake. And in it, too, +was a farewell and a defiance and an appeal. The heavy roar of the duck +gun came. + +At twenty yards the double charge tore the throat out of him. He came +down, face forward, upon the log and clung there, his trunk twisting +distortedly, his legs twitching and kicking like the legs of a speared +frog, his shoulders hunching and lifting spasmodically as the life ran +out of him all in one swift coursing flow. His head canted up between +the heaving shoulders, his eyes looked full on the staring face of his +murderer, and then the blood came out of his mouth and Fishhead, in +death still as much fish as man, slid flopping, head first, off the end +of the log and sank, face downward, slowly, his limbs all extended out. +One after another a string of big bubbles came up to burst in the middle +of a widening reddish stain on the coffee-colored water. + +The brothers watched this, held by the horror of the thing they had +done, and the cranky dugout, tipped far over by the recoil of the gun, +took water steadily across its gunwale; and now there was a sudden +stroke from below upon its careening bottom and it went over and they +were in the lake. But shore was only twenty feet away, the trunk of the +uprooted tree only five. Joel, still holding fast to his hot gun, made +for the log, gaining it with one stroke. He threw his free arm over it +and clung there, treading water, as he shook his eyes free. Something +gripped him--some great, sinewy, unseen thing gripped him fast by the +thigh, crushing down on his flesh. + +He uttered no cry, but his eyes popped out and his mouth set in a square +shape of agony, and his fingers gripped into the bark of the tree like +grapples. He was pulled down and down, by steady jerks, not rapidly but +steadily, so steadily, and as he went his fingernails tore four little +white strips in the tree bark. His mouth went under, next his popping +eyes, then his erect hair, and finally his clawing, clutching hand, and +that was the end of him. + +Jake's fate was harder still, for he lived longer--long enough to see +Joel's finish. He saw it through the water that ran down his face, and +with a great surge of his whole body he literally flung himself across +the log and jerked his legs up high into the air to save them. He flung +himself too far, though, for his face and chest hit the water on the far +side. And out of this water rose the head of a great fish, with the +lake slime of years on its flat, black head, its whiskers bristling, its +corpsy eyes alight. Its horny jaws closed and clamped in the front of +Jake's flannel shirt. His hand struck out wildly and was speared on a +poisoned fin, and unlike Joel, he went from sight with a great yell and +a whirling and a churning of the water that made the cornstalks circle +on the edges of a small whirlpool. + +But the whirlpool soon thinned away into widening rings of ripples and +the cornstalks quit circling and became still again, and only the +multiplying night noises sounded about the mouth of the slough. + + * * * * * + +The bodies of all three came ashore on the same day near the same place. +Except for the gaping gunshot wound where the neck met the chest, +Fishhead's body was unmarked. But the bodies of the two Baxters were so +marred and mauled that the Reelfooters buried them together on the bank +without ever knowing which might be Jake's and which might be Joel's. + + + + +IX + +GUILTY AS CHARGED + + +The Jew, I take it, is essentially temperamental, whereas the Irishman +is by nature sentimental; so that in the long run both of them may reach +the same results by varying mental routes. This, however, has nothing to +do with the story I am telling here, except inferentially. + +It was trial day at headquarters. To be exact, it was the tail end of +trial day at headquarters. The mills of the police gods, which grind not +so slowly but ofttimes exceeding fine, were about done with their +grinding; and as the last of the grist came through the hopper, the last +of the afternoon sunlight came sifting in through the windows at the +west, thin and pale as skim milk. One after another the culprits, +patrolmen mainly, had been arraigned on charges preferred by a superior +officer, who was usually a lieutenant or a captain, but once in a while +an inspector, full-breasted and gold-banded, like a fat blue bumblebee. +In due turn each offender had made his defense; those who were lying +about it did their lying, as a rule, glibly and easily and with a +certain bogus frankness very pleasing to see. Contrary to a general +opinion, the Father of Lies is often quite good to his children. But +those who were telling the truth were frequently shamefaced and mumbling +of speech, making poor impressions. + +In due turn, also, each man had been convicted or had been acquitted, +yet all--the proven innocent and the adjudged guilty alike--had +undergone punishment, since they all had to sit and listen to lectures +on police discipline and police manners from the trial deputy. It was +perhaps as well for the peace and good order of the community that the +public did not attend these seances. Those classes now that are the most +thoroughly and most personally governed--the pushcart pedlers, with the +permanent cringing droops in their alien backs; the sinful small boys, +who play baseball in the streets against the statutes made and provided; +the broken old wrecks, who ambush the prosperous passer-by in the +shadows of dark corners, begging for money with which to keep body and +soul together--it was just as well perhaps that none of them was +admitted there to see these large, firm, stern men in uniform wriggling +on the punishment chair, fumbling at their buttons, explaining, whining, +even begging for mercy under the lashing flail of Third Deputy +Commissioner Donohue's sleety judgments. + +"The only time old Donny warms up is when he's got a grudge against +you," a wit of headquarters--Larry Magee by name--had said once as he +came forth from the ordeal, brushing imaginary hailstones off his +shoulders. "It's always snowing hard in his soul!" + +Unlike most icy-tempered men, though, Third Deputy Commissioner Donohue +was addicted to speech. Dearly he loved to hear the sound of his own +voice. Give to Donohue a congenial topic, such as some one's official or +personal shortcomings, and a congenial audience, and he excelled +mightily in saw-edged oratory, rolling his r's until the tortured +consonants fairly lay on their backs and begged for mercy. + +This, however, would have to be said for Deputy Commissioner Donohue--he +was a hard one to fool. Himself a grayed ex-private of the force, who +had climbed from the ranks step by step through slow and devious stages, +he was coldly aware of every trick and device of the delinquent +policeman. A new and particularly ingenious subterfuge, one that tasted +of the fresh paint, might win his begrudged admiration--his gray flints +of eyes would strike off sparks of grim appreciation; but then, nearly +always, as though to discourage originality even in lying, he would +plaster on the penalty--and the lecture--twice as thick. Wherefore, +because of all these things, the newspaper men at headquarters viewed +this elderly disciplinarian with mixed professional emotions. Presiding +over a trial day, he made abundant copy for them, which was very good; +but if the case were an important one he often prolonged it until they +missed getting the result into their final editions, which, if you know +anything about final editions, was very, very bad. + +It was so on this particular afternoon. Here it was nearly dusk. The +windows toward the east showed merely as opaque patches set against a +wall of thickening gloom, and the third deputy commissioner had started +in at two-thirty and was not done yet. Sparse and bony, he crouched +forward on the edge of his chair, with his lean head drawn down between +his leaner shoulders and his stiff stubble of hair erect on his scalp, +and he looked, perching there, like a broody but vigilant old crested +cormorant upon a barren rock. + +Except for one lone figure of misery, the anxious bench below him was by +now empty. Most of the witnesses were gone and most of the spectators, +and all the newspaper men but two. He whetted a lean and crooked +forefinger like a talon on the edge of the docket book, turned the page +and called the last case, being the case of Patrolman James J. Rogan. +Patrolman Rogan was a short horse and soon curried. For being on such +and such a day, at such and such an hour, off his post, where he +belonged, and in a saloon where he did not belong, sitting down, with +his blouse unfastened and his belt unbuckled; and for having no better +excuse, or no worse one, than the ancient tale of a sudden attack of +faintness causing him to make his way into the nearest place where he +might recover himself--that it happened to be a family liquor store was, +he protested, a sheer accident--Patrolman Rogan was required to pay five +days' pay and, moreover, to listen to divers remarks in which he heard +himself likened to several things, none of them of a complimentary +character. + +Properly crushed and shrunken, the culprit departed thence with his +uniform bagged and wrinkling upon his diminished form, and the third +deputy commissioner, well pleased, on the whole, with his day's hunting, +prepared to adjourn. The two lone reporters got up and made for the +door, intending to telephone in to their two shops the grand total and +final summary of old Donohue's bag of game. + +They were at the door, in a little press of departing witnesses and late +defendants, when behind them a word in Donohue's hard-rolled official +accents made them halt and turn round. The veteran had picked up from +his desk a sheet of paper and was squinting up his hedgy, thick eyebrows +in an effort to read what was written there. + +"Wan more case to be heard," he announced. "Keep order there, you men at +the door! The case of Lieutenant Isidore Weil"--he grated the name out +lingeringly--"charged with--with----" He broke off, peering about him +for some one to scold. "Couldn't you be makin' a light here, some of +you! I can't see to make out these here charges and specifications." + +Some one bestirred himself and many lights popped on, chasing the +shadows back into the far corners. Outside in the hall a policeman doing +duty as a bailiff called the name of Lieutenant Isidore Weil, thrice +repeated. + +"Gee! Have they landed that slick kike at last?" said La Farge, the +older of the reporters, half to himself. "Say, you know, that tickles +me! I've been looking this long time for something like this to be +coming off." Like most old headquarters reporters, La Farge had his +deep-seated prejudices. To judge by his present expression, this was a +very deep-seated one, amounting, you might say, to a constitutional +infirmity with La Farge. + +"Who's Weil and what's he done?" inquired Rogers. Rogers was a young +reporter. + +"I don't know yet--the charge must be newly filed, I guess," said La +Farge, answering the last question first. "But I hope they nail him! I +don't like him--never did. He's too fresh. He's too smart--one of those +self-educated East Side Yiddishers, you know. Used to be a court +interpreter down at Essex Market--knows about steen languages. And +he--here he comes now." + +Weil passed them, going into the trial room--a short, squarely built man +with oily black hair above a dark, round face. Instantly you knew him +for one of the effusive Semitic type; every angle and turn of his +outward aspect testified frankly of his breed and his sort. And at sight +of him entering you could almost see the gorge of Deputy Commissioner +Donohue's race antagonism rising inside of him. His gray hackles +stiffened and his thick-set eyebrows bristled outward like bits of +frosted privet. Again he began whetting his forefinger on the leather +back of the closed docket book. It was generally a bad sign for somebody +when Donohue whetted his forefinger like that, and La Farge would have +delighted to note it. But La Farge's appraising eyes were upon the +accused. + +"Listen!" he said under his breath to Rogers. "I think they must have +the goods on Mister Wisenheimer at last. Usually he's the cockiest person +round this building. Now take a look at him." + +Indeed, there was a visible air of self-abasement about Lieutenant Weil +as he crossed the wide chamber. It was a thing hard to define in words; +yet undeniably there was a diffidence and a reluctance manifest in him, +as though a sense of guilt wrestled with the man's natural conceit and +assurance. + +"Rogers," said La Farge, "let's hustle out and 'phone in what we've got +and then come back right away. If this fellow's going to get the harpoon +stuck into him I want to be on hand when he starts bleeding." + +Only a few of the dwindled crowd turned back to hear the beginning of +the case, whatever it might be, against the Jew. The rest scattered +through the corridors, heading mainly for the exits, so that the two +newspaper men had company as they hurried toward the main door, making +for their offices across the street. When they came back the long cross +halls were almost deserted; it had taken them a little longer to finish +the job of telephoning than they had figured. At the door of the trial +room stood one bulky blue figure. It was the acting bailiff. + +"How far along have they got?" asked La Farge as the policeman made way +for them to pass in. + +"Captain Meagher is the first witness," said the policeman. "He's the +one that's makin' the charge." + +"What is the charge?" put in Rogers. + +"At this distance I couldn't make out--Cap Meagher, he mumbles so," +confessed the doorkeeper. "Somethin' about misuse of police property, I +take it to be." + +"Aha!" gloated La Farge in his gratification. "Come on, Rogers--I don't +want to miss any of this." + +It was plain, however, that they had missed something; for, to judge by +his attitude, Captain Meagher was quite through with his testimony. He +still sat in the witness chair alongside the deputy commissioner's desk; +but he was silent and he stared vacantly at vacancy. Captain Meagher was +known in the department as a man incredibly honest and unbelievably +dull. He had no more imagination than one of his own reports. He had a +long, sad face, like a tired workhorse's, and heavy black eyebrows that +curved high in the middle and arched downward at each end--circumflexes +accenting the incurable stupidity of his expression. His black mustache +drooped the same way, too, in the design of an inverted magnet. Larry +Magee had coined one of his best whimsies on the subject of the shape of +the captain's mustache. + +"No wonder," he said, "old Meagher never has any luck--he wears his +horseshoe upside down on his face!" + +Just as the two reporters, re-entering, took their seats the trial +deputy spoke. + +"Is that all, Captain Meagher?" he asked sonorously. + +"That's all," said Meagher. + +"I note," went on Donohue, glancing about him, "that the accused does +not appear to be represented by counsel." + +A man on trial at headquarters has the right to hire a lawyer to defend +him. + +"No, sir," spoke up Weil briskly. "I've got no lawyer, commissioner." +His speech was the elaborated and painfully emphasized English of the +self-taught East Sider. It carried in it just the bare suggestion of the +racial lisp, and it made an acute contrast to the menacing Hibernian +purr of Donohue's heavier voice. "I kind of thought I'd conduct my own +case myself." + +Donohue merely grunted. + +"Do you desire, Lieutenant Weil, for to ask Captain Meagher any +questions?" he demanded. + +Weil shook his oily head of hair. + +"No, sir. I wouldn't wish to ask the captain anything." + +"Are there any other witnesses?" inquired Donohue next. + +There was no answer. Plainly there were no other witnesses. + +"Lieutenant Weil, do you desire for to say something in your own +behalf?" queried the deputy commissioner. + +"I think I'd like to," answered Weil. + +He stood to be sworn, took the chair Meagher vacated and sat facing the +room, appearing--so La Farge thought--more shamefaced and abashed than +ever. + +"Now, then," commanded Donohue impressively, "what statement, if any, +have you to make, Lieutenant Weil, touchin' on this here charge +preferred by your superior officer?" + +Weil cleared his throat. Rogers figured that this bespoke embarrassment; +but, to the biased understanding of the hostile La Farge, there was +something falsely theatrical even in the way Weil cleared his throat. + +"Once a grandstander always a grandstander!" he muttered derisively. + +"What did you say?" whispered Rogers. + +"Nothing," replied La Farge--"just thinking out loud. Listen to what +Foxy Issy has to say for himself." + +"Well, sir, commissioner," began the accused, "this here thing happens +last Thursday, just as Captain Meagher is telling you." He had slipped +already into the policeman's trick of detailing a past event in the +present tense. + +"It's late in the afternoon--round five o'clock I guess--and I'm +downstairs in the Detective Bureau alone." + +"Alone, you say?" broke in Donohue, emphasizing the word as though the +admission scored a point against the man on trial. + +"Yes, sir, I'm alone. It happens that everybody else is out and I'm in +temporary charge, as you might say. It's getting along toward dark when +Patrolman Morgan, who's on duty out in the hall, comes in and says to me +there's a woman outside who can't talk English and he can't make out +what she wants. So I tells him to bring her in. She comes in. Right +away I see she's a Ginney--an Italian," he corrected himself hurriedly. +"She's got a child with her--a little boy about two years old." + +"Describe this here woman!" ordered Donohue, who loved to drag in +details at a trial, not so much for the sake of the details themselves +as to show his skill as a cross-examiner. + +"Well, sir," complied Weil, "I should say she's about twenty-five years +old. It's hard to tell about those Italian women, but I should say she's +about twenty-five--or maybe twenty-six. She's got no figure at all and +she's dressed poor. But she's got a pretty face--big brown eyes and----" + +"That will do," interrupted the deputy commissioner--"that will do for +that. I take it you're not qualifyin' here for a beauty expert, +Lieutenant Weil!" he added with elaborate sarcasm. + +"You asked me about her looks, sir," parried Weil defensively, "and I'm +just trying to tell you." + +"Proceed! Proceed!" bade Donohue, rumbling his consonants. + +"Yes, sir. Well, in regard to this woman: She's talking so fast I can't +figure out at first what she's trying to tell me. It's Italian she's +talking--or I should say the kind of Italian they talk in parts of +Sicily. After a little I begin to see what she's driving at. It seems +she's the wife of one Antonio Terranova and her name is Maria +Terranova. And after I get her straightened out and going slow she tells +me her story." + +"Is this here story got a bearin' on the charges pendin'?" + +"I think it has. Yes, sir; it helps to explain what happens. As near as +I can make out she comes from some small town down round Messina +somewhere, and the way she tells it to me, her husband leaves there not +long after they're married and comes over here to New York to get work, +and when he gets enough money saved up ahead he's going to send back for +her. That's near about three years ago. So she stays behind waiting for +him, and in about four months after he leaves the baby is born--the same +baby that she brings in here to headquarters with her last Thursday. She +says neither one of them thinks it'll be long before he can save up +money for her passage, but it seems like he has the bad luck. He's sick +for a while after he lands, and then when he gets a job in a +construction gang the padrone takes the most of what he makes. And just +about the time he gets a little saved up some other Ginney--Italian--in +the construction camp steals it off of him. + +"So he's up against it, and after a while he gets desperate. So he joins +in with a Black Hander gang--amateurs operating up in the Bronx--and the +very first trick he helps turn he does well by it. His share is near +about a hundred dollars, and he sends her the best part of it to bring +her and the baby over. She don't know at the time, though, how he raises +all this money--so she tells me. And I think, at that, she's telling the +truth--she ain't got sense enough to lie, I think. Anyway it sounds +truthful to me--the way she tells it to me here last Thursday night." + +"Proceed!" prompted Donohue testily. + +"So she takes this here money and buys herself a steerage ticket and +comes over here with the baby. That, as near as I can figure out, is +about three months ago. She's not seen this husband of hers for going on +three years--of course the baby's never seen him. And she figures he'll +be at the dock to meet her. But he's not there. But his cousin is +there--another Italian from the same town. He gets her through Ellis +Island somehow and he takes her up to where he's living--up in the +Bronx--and tells her the reason her husband ain't there to meet her. The +reason is, he's at Sing Sing, doing four years. + +"It seems that after he's sent her this passage money the husband gets +to thinking Black Handing is a pretty soft way to make a living, +especially compared to day laboring, and he tries to raise a stake +single-handed. He writes a Black Hand letter to an Italian grocer he +knows has got money laid by, only the grocer is foxy and goes to the +Tremont Avenue Station and shows the letter. They rig up a plant and +this here Antonio Terranova walks into it. He's caught with the marked +bills on him. So just the week before she lands he takes a plea in +General Sessions and the judge gives him four years. When she gets to +where she's telling me that part of it she starts crying. + +"Well, anyway, that's the situation--him up there at Sing Sing doing his +four years and her down here in New York with the kid on her hands. And +she don't ever see him again, either, because in about three or four +weeks--something like that--he's working with a gang in the rock quarry +across the river, where they're building the new cell house, and a chunk +of slate falls down and kills him and two others." + +"Right here and now," interrupted the third deputy commissioner, "I want +to know what's all this here stuff got to do with these here charges and +specifications?" + +"Just a minute, please. I'm coming to that right away, commissioner," +protested the accused lieutenant with a sort of glib nervous agility; +yet for all of his promising, he paused for a little bit before he +continued. And this pause, brief enough as it was, gave the listening La +Farge time to discover, with a small inward jar of surprise, that +somehow, some way, he was beginning to lose some of his acrid antagonism +for Weil; that, by mental processes which as yet he could not exactly +resolve into their proper constituents, it was beginning to dribble +away from him. And realization came to him, almost with a shock, that +the man on the stand was telling the truth. Truth or not, though, the +narrative thus far had been commonplace enough--people at headquarters +hear the like of it often; and as a seasoned police reporter La Farge's +emotions by now should be coated over with a calloused shell inches deep +and hard as horn. Trying with half his mind to figure out what it was +that had quickened these emotions, he listened all the harder as Weil +went on. + +"So this here big chunk of rock or slate or whatever it was falls on him +and the two others and kills them. Not knowing where to send the body, +they bury it up there at Sing Sing, and she never sees him again, living +or dead. But here just a few days ago it seems she picks up, from +overhearing some of the other Italians talking, that we've got such a +thing as a Rogues' Gallery down here at headquarters and that her +husband's picture is liable to be in it. So that's why she's here. She's +found her way here somehow and she asks me won't I"--he caught +himself--"won't the police please give her her husband's picture out of +the gallery." + +"And for why did she want that?" rumbled Donohue. + +"That's what I asks her myself. It seems she's got no shame about it at +all. She tells me she wants to hang on to it until she can get the +money to have it enlarged into a big picture, and then she's going to +keep it--till the bambino--that's Italian for baby, commissioner, you +know--till the baby grows up, so he can see what his dead father looked +like." + +Now of a sudden La Farge knew--or thought he knew--why his interest had +stirred in him a minute before. Instinctively his reporter's sixth sense +had scented a good news story before the real point of the story had +come out, even. A curious little silence had fallen on the half-lighted, +almost empty big room. Only the voice of Weil broke this silence: + +"Of course, commissioner, I tries to explain to her what the +circumstances are. I tells her that, in the first place, on account of +the mayor's orders about cutting down the gallery having gone into +effect, it's an even bet her husband's picture ain't there anyhow--that +it's most likely been destroyed; and in the second place, even if it is +there, I tells her I've got no right to be giving it to her without an +order from somebody higher up. But either she can't understand or she +won't. I guess my being in uniform makes her think I'm running the whole +department, and she won't seem to listen to what I says. + +"She cries and she carries on worse than ever, and begs and begs me to +give it to her. I guess you know how excitable those Italian women can +be, especially when they are Sicilians. Anyhow, commissioner, after a +lot of that sort of thing I tells her to wait where she is for a minute. +I leaves her and I goes across into the Bertillon room, where the +pictures are, and I looks up this here Antonio Terranova. I forget his +number now and I don't know how it is he comes to be overlooked when +we're cleaning out the gallery; but he's there all right, full face and +side view, with his gallery number in big white figures on his chest. +And, commissioner, he's a pretty tolerable tough-looking Ginney." The +witness checked an inclination to grin. "I takes a slant at his picture, +and I can't make up my own mind which way he'll look the worst enlarged +into a crayon portrait--full face or side view. I can still hear her +crying outside the door. She's crying harder than ever. + +"I puts the picture back, and I goes out to where she is and tries to +argue with her. It's no use. She goes down on her knees and holds the +baby up, and tells me it ain't for her sake she's asking this--it's for +the bambino. And she calls on a lot of Italian saints that I never even +heard the names of some of them before--and so on, like that. It's +pretty tough. + +"She's such a stupid, ignorant thing you can't help from feeling sorry +for her--nobody could." He hesitated a moment as though seeking for +words of explanation and extenuation that were not in his regular +vocabulary. "I got kids of my own, commissioner," he said suddenly, and +stopped dead short for a moment. "I'm no Italian, but I got kids of my +own!" he repeated, as though the fact constituted a defense. + +"Well, well--what happened then?" The deputy commissioner's frosty voice +seemed to have frozen so hard it had a crack in it. And now then the +Semitic face of Weil twisted into a grin that was more than +shamefaced--it was downright sheepish. + +"Why, then," he said, "when I comes back out of the Bertillon room the +second time she goes back down on her knees again and she says to me--of +course she ain't expected to know what my religion is--maybe that +explains it, commissioner--she says to me that all her life--every +morning and every night--she's going to pray to the Blessed Virgin for +me. That's what she says anyway. So I just lets it go at that." + +He halted as though he were through. + +"Then do I understand that, without an order from any superior +authority, you gave this here woman certain property belonging to the +Police Department?" Old Donohue's voice was gruffer than common, even. +He whetted his talon forefinger on the desk top. + +"Yes, sir," owned up the Jew. "There's nobody there but just us two. And +I don't know how Captain Meagher comes to find the picture is gone and +that it was me took it--but it's true, commissioner. She goes away +kissing it and holding it to the breast of her clothes--that Rogues' +Gallery picture! Yes, sir; I gives it to her." + +The third deputy commissioner's gold-banded right arm was shoved out, +with all the lean fingers upon the hand at the far end of it widely +extended. He spoke, and something in his throat--a hard lump +perhaps--husked his brogue and made his r's roll out like dice. + +"Lieutenant Weil," he said, "I congratulate you! You're guilty!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Escape of Mr. Trimm, by Irvin S. Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM *** + +***** This file should be named 24799.txt or 24799.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/7/9/24799/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |