Part 22

Skeeter Butts arose from his place, sobbing with pain. He staggered across the blood-splashed floor toward a pitcher of water which sat on the floor by the judge’s bench. Weakness overcame him, and he sank down in the witness-chair, almost fainting.

Judge Henry Haddan, whose Websterian head was considerably larger now on account of certain bruised and swollen places, and a big wad of cotton applied to them, thrust a glass of water into Skeeter’s trembling hands.

“Skeeter,” he asked, “how did you know that Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg committed that crime in Sawtown?”

“I didn’t know, Marse Henry,” Skeeter answered in a weak voice. “I sot down in dis chair an’ I said jes’ whut Ginny Babe Chew tole me to say!”

Everybody in the court-room heard Skeeter’s answer. There was a general gasp of astonishment.

Judge Haddan walked wearily up to his bench and sat down. It appeared later that he was seriously hurt, and he spent many weeks in bed. But now he was sustained by the excitement of the moment.

The district attorney dragged himself across the floor and sat down at his table near to where Dinner Gaze lay face downward, his hand still grasping the table-leg.

Ginny Babe Chew walked to the middle of the room, rested a fat hand on each fat hip, and looked up into the face of Judge Haddan.

“Yes, suh, boss,” she said. “Ginny Babe Chew is to blame fer dis here noble fracas!” Then she smiled.

“How did you know, Ginny?” Judge Haddan asked, twisting his pain-shot face into an answering smile, and feeling of an extremely sore place on top of his head.

“Dude Blackum tole me!” she answered.

“Dude Blackum is dead--drowned in attempting to escape!” Judge Haddan snapped.

“Naw, suh. He warn’t drowned. He’s a settin’ right dar by Dainty Blackum now!”

As she pointed a young, respectful, nicely dressed negro stood up, bowed to the judge, and smiled, flashing a gold front tooth.

“Naw, suh, jedge,” he murmured in a deprecatory tone. “I ain’t dead!”

Then they listened while Dude told his story.

After leaving his cabin with the jug, he had taken several drinks and had crawled under the porch of the commissary store to sleep because he was afraid to go back home to listen to what Dainty was sure to say about his conduct. He had been awakened by having something thrown over his face--and this afterward proved to be the coat and vest which Tucky Sugg had taken from Hitch Diamond. Dude heard two men talking, heard them call each other by name, heard them enter the store for robbery; then Dude had seized his jug and had run to the night-watchman and made a report.

The night-watchman, running to the store, had been killed.

Dude, dodging among the lumber piles, had been captured; the only man who could clear him of suspicion had just been killed; his captors would not listen to explanations, so Dude took a desperate chance by jumping into the river, and had escaped.

What the mob thought was Dude’s woolly head bobbing upon the surface of the water was really Dude’s derby hat. Expecting them to shoot at his hat, Dude waited until the right time, and artfully contributed a splash and a scream, and the mob thought he had got cramps and sunk.

Chucklingly, Dude told his auditors that he was beating his hat down the river about thirty yards, swimming like Jonah inside the whale.

He returned to his cabin that night, explained everything to Dainty, mounted a mustang, and rode to Ginny Babe Chew’s cabin, where she concealed him until the time of the trial. Skeeter had seen his face at the dormer window when the chicken-house burned down.

“I knowed dat Dinner Gaze an’ Tucky Sugg done it, Marse Henry,” Skeeter cackled. “I knowed it all de time--I had a hunch!”

“I knowed it, too,” Ginny Babe Chew rumbled. “I’s got a hoodoo face.”

“I knowed it,” Hitch Diamond growled. “Goldie told me.”

“I think we had better go home,” Judge Henry Haddan said, with a funny twisted smile. “My head hurts!”

“I beg your pardon, your honor,” the district attorney said, rising painfully to his feet and leaning weakly against the table. “Excuse me--but haven’t you forgotten something?”

Judge Haddan’s aching head was not working clearly, and he did not catch Davazec’s meaning at all. He thought he understood, and so he announced:

“Hitch Diamond, you are a brave negro. Your heroic fight in this court-room will be long remembered.” Haddan broke off, tried to smile, and continued: “Your masterly presentation of your defense disproves, in this instance, the aphorism that a lawyer who pleads his own case has a fool for a client.”

“Dat’s right, boss!” Ginny Babe Chew whooped. “Little Hitchie shore is brave an’ smart, ef I do say it myse’f, whut hadn’t oughter. Nobody in dis country don’t know it but me and Hitch--but I is Hitch’s mammy! He is kin to me by bornation on de Flournoy plantation fawty years ago----”

“Aw, hush!” Judge Haddan exclaimed. “I am feeling very badly, and I am going home----”

“I beg your pardon, your honor!” the district attorney repeated in a courteous but insistent tone. “Have you not forgotten something?”

Judge Haddan rested both hands upon his aching head and thought. Then he forgot his aching head and laughed. He straightened up and spoke:

“The indictments against defendant are dismissed, and defendant discharged--the jury is excused, and court adjourned! Hitch Diamond, you are free!”

“Dar now, boss,” Hitch bellowed, grinning into his honor’s face. “I wus plum’ shore you an’ me could win dis case ef we jes’ sot our minds to do it. Bless Gawd!”

THE END

GREATHEART

By Ethel M. Dell

Author of “The Way of an Eagle,” “The Rocks of Valpré,” “The Keeper of the Door,” “Bars of Iron,” “The Hundredth Chance,” etc.

_12^o. Color Frontispiece. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65_

Surely Miss Dell has never written anything more deserving of the title “best seller” than this absorbing story, which takes an elemental grip on the reader to an amazing degree.

The flirtation of a young girl, released for a brief time from the harsh restraint of an unlovely home, develops until it assumes overmastering proportions, and she is barely saved from herself by the steadfast loyalty, unspoken love, and great moral courage of the physically weak brother of her handsome, impulsive, and philandering lover. The scene is largely laid in Switzerland, and the ravishing beauty of that lovely land is painted with admirable skill.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York London

The Smiting of the Rock

A Tale of Oregon

By Palmer Bend

_12^o. Frontis. by Belmore Browne $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65_

Clear, clean, well-written is this story of the adventures brought to David Kent by “a plain-faced Bishop, a superlatively pretty girl, and a quixotic resolution”--a book to _refresh_ and _appeal_.

It is sunny with the spirit of the western country, the magnificent mountains, and the whole-hearted pioneers of to-day. It is a tale of failure and success, of love and youth and dramatic contrast, lit with humor and warm with the breath of life and actuality.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York London

[Transcriber’s Note:

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]