Part 4

“You’ve got to get used to ’em, you old fool,” barked my uncle, “I don’t propose to have you forgetting yourself. It would be just like you, right in the middle of that dicker-talk, to prill up your dress and reach into your pants pocket for a plug of tobacco. Now get up and let me see you practise walking; and forget that you’re wearing pants.”

Runnels went grunting and limping around the room, whining like a teased quill-pig. His feet were pinched into women’s shoes. My uncle seemed to see much humor in this exhibition, but I couldn’t find any. It looked to me only like a grotesque sham, and pitiful, too, for I knew it was not going to succeed. “Squealing John” appeared to be of the same opinion. He kept complaining that he would not be able to fool a sharp man like the judge, and asked, anxiously, what the law penalty was when a man dressed up like a woman.

“I’m a good mind to let ye foreclose and be shet of the thing,” he said, facing my uncle and cracking together his bony little fists. “All that will come of this trick is that I’ll be took up and sent to jail. I’m a good mind to go to the judge and tell him how I’m persecuted and hectored and see if he won’t take up that bill o’ sale.”

“I’ll kill you if you do--I’ll kill anybody else who blows on me and my plans: Now, Queen of Sheby, remember that this is my champion performance. I ain’t in any frame of mind to be trifled with.”

He went to the oat-bin and brought in his bottle.

“You need to be teaed up a little so that you’ll have some courage, you old angleworm.”

After the two of them had swallowed stiff drinks my uncle turned on me.

“I have half a mind to dress you up instead of Runnels, son. Your face is smooth and you’ve got nerve enough to act the thing out right.”

“I’ll not turn any such trick,” I said. I was angry in a moment. So was he.

“You will if I tell you to.”

“I won’t; and I’ll say further that I don’t think much of this business, anyway.”

“Nor I--and that’s two against one,” declared Runnels, the tip of his thin nose beginning to glow as if new courage had hung out a banner.

Liquor had also given my uncle’s temper an edge of its own; he cuffed Runnels until that lamenting “lady’s” hat fell off. I jumped up and ran away into the fields, for I knew that Uncle Deck was merely warming up on “Squealing John”; as chief mutineer, I was ticketed for the real bout. I lurked about in the pine grove till after sunset. Then I stole back into the village with all the stealth of a criminal.

V--SHOOING AWAY A SCAPEGOAT

I RECKON it’s best for innocence to go boldly in this world. At any rate, I would have come off better that night if I had not lurked and prowled. However, I was only obeying very wise dictates of prudence; my uncle had been sufficiently savage in the harness-room when rebellion was merely in process of hatching. To meet him after Judge Kingsley had exploded the bomb--and I was sure that I would be revealed in the matter--would be like getting in the path of a Bengal tiger with snap-crackers blistering his tail.

I wasn’t at all certain what I would do after I found out that I had been exposed to my uncle’s fury; first of all, so I felt, it was essential to learn what had developed in the horse trade.

So I stole in the gloom around behind the buildings of the village and retraced my trail up through the judge’s orchard. While I was still some distance from the mansion I heard considerable of a hullabaloo above which rose the shrill voice of “Squealing John” Runnels, who was issuing warnings about “laying a whip on that hoss.” Then there was a racketing and a splintering and down past me came an outfit which I recognized. The horse was certainly the brute my uncle had doctored into false shapeliness; the mane was dangling in shreds where the apple-tree limbs had raked. Runnels, his woman’s hat hanging on his back, was kneeling on the bottom of the wagon, both hands full of false hair which he had reaped from the horse’s tail in effort to check the animal; he had lost the reins and they were dragging uselessly on the ground.

Not far from me the wagon was flailed against a tree and Mr. Runnels was violently dislodged; but I judged that he was not injured because, after rolling over and over on the turf, he rose and ran away with his skirts gathered around his waist.

It was evident that my uncle’s plot had failed ingloriously.

I could understand the flash of fresh spirit in that moribund horse; Runnels had shrieked warnings regarding a whip; a lash laid across those tingling water-blisters must have made that poor old pelter develop a hankering to outfly Pegasus. He disappeared with fragments of the thills clattering on his heels.

Then there were immediate and further developments in that orchard. I thought for a startled moment that it was enchanted ground. White figures began to pop up here and there and came flocking to me. I found myself surrounded by the Skokums, wearing the pillowcase masks I had furnished.

They seemed to think I had some information regarding the runaway or was concerned in it, but I had no news to give out. One of them brought the old felt hat with its broken feather.

“I didn’t know there was any woman in these parts who could cuss like that one did when she went down through the orchard,” said one of the Sortwell boys. “I reckon that detective is finding mysteries piling in on him pretty thick.”

“What detective?” I asked.

“The one that Judge Kingsley has been hiding in his house. That detective was hid in a closet in the office to-day when the judge was asking questions of us.”

“How do you know he was there?”

“Cigar smoke was coming out of the cracks in the closet door. So somebody was hid. And since then he has been outdoors and we piped him off. He followed you home. Didn’t you see him?”

I did remember the strange man who had been loafing along behind me, but I kept my own counsel. I had a more important matter on my mind.

“I want to know which of you fellows told Judge Kingsley to-day that I am ringleader of this gang?”

No one answered me. They went on making fun of the detective, and I’ll admit that it seemed to me that he was putting up a poor job in his line. My reading had given me a rather exalted idea of detectives, but a man who smoked behind a closet door while eavesdropping, and through whose identity those country boys saw straightway, was certainly a clumsy operator. Therefore, I lost interest in him and persisted in my own business with them.

“I’m going to overlook your dirty work in setting old Bennie on to me,” I said. “You may have done it only for a joke, and there’s no telling what a fool will do when you start him off. But there’s no joke in blowing on me to Judge Kingsley--and you say there was a detective listening behind a door. Now own up!”

Nobody volunteered.

“I told him myself that I was in it at first. But when I said I was out of it he made it plain that some of you are still putting the blame on me. Whoever has said anything of that kind to him is a sneak.”

No word from any of them.

“And the fellow who won’t speak up to me now, so that we can settle this thing, is a coward.”

There was no such thing as picking out a guilty face in that crowd; they were hooded with those pillow-slips. I wasn’t sure which was which; I couldn’t locate even Ben Pratt in the gang, and he was the special chap I had in mind as informer.

“I can say this,” stated one of the boys, “that I didn’t mention your name to the judge, Ross. So there’s no chance for a fight between you and me. But when you come to twitting about the throwing-down business, let me remind you that you did the first job in that line; you threw us all down. And that was after we had turned a trick that saved you and your uncle good money.”

“But what the rest of you wanted to do was go around in the night and raise the devil in this town, simply for the sake of mischief. I wouldn’t do that, and I told you so.”

“But how about a case where we’d be protecting ourselves against somebody who was doing us dirt?”

“Nothing like that has been put up to me.”

“It’s going to be in about three seconds. You organized this society; now do something for it. We’re going to coat that detective with molasses and feathers and ride him out of the village on a rail. We call on you to boss the job.”

“I won’t do it.”

“Then join in with us and help.”

“No!”

“This isn’t mischief--it’s tackling an enemy. You haven’t got any good excuse for throwing us down.”

“I’ve got an excuse that suits _me_. I have made up my mind to travel straight in this town, after this. I’m going to do it. I have my own good reasons for doing it.”

“Lost your courage, hey?”

“It takes more courage to stand up here and say what I’m saying than to lead this mob.”

“So _you_ say, but that doesn’t convince _us_. Go home, then, and get out from underfoot.”

It came to me all of a sudden and with sickening force that it required more courage to go home and face my uncle than to undertake any other project which my mind could grasp just then.

I stood stock-still and they began to suspect my motives in sticking around.

“You won’t head the party, you won’t go along as a member, you won’t get out of the way,” growled a voice, and I recognized Ben Pratt. “What do you intend to do--make a holler?”

I could be just as stiff in temper as any of that Levant bunch.

“A good deal depends on what you devils intend to do,” I said.

“You may as well know at the start-off! We intend to have that detective out of Judge Kingsley’s house! If he doesn’t come out when we call him we shall go in and get him.”

“That’s a prison crime--entering a house like that,” I warned them. “Also, think what a report that is to go out from Levant! A guest of our leading citizen dragged from a private residence by a mob! There’s a sacredness about a home--”

“What book did you get that out of?” asked some one, and they laughed.

I suppose it did sound mighty top-lofty and unlike anything else that ever came from me. But I was thinking with all my might of Celene Kingsley and what an awful thing it would be to have those young hyenas invade that house in the night-time. You can say what you want to about hoodlumism in the city--it’s bad! But you’ve got to go back into the country for unadulterated hellishness, when a mob really gets started. Furthermore, nobody is especially afraid of a village constable. I could foresee dirty doings that night in Levant. I had seen one mob in Levant when I was a youngster; they tarred and feathered a fanatical evangelist, and he died of fright.

I tried to think up something in the way of argument and I stammered about local pride and so forth, but my talk didn’t ring true, and I felt it and they knew it. Personally, I didn’t care a hoot about that clumsy fool of a detective, and I was not remarkably fond of sneering Judge Kingsley. If I could have stepped up to those boys and explained my love and my hopes and my fears for Celene Kingsley I might have made some impression on them. But that was not to be thought of.

While I talked I saw them crawling toward me, spreading out, two by two. It was plain enough--they intended to start their foray by making me a captive so that I could not interfere.

Therefore, I made hasty resolution and turned and ran with all my speed toward Judge Kingsley’s house. I wasn’t at all sure just what I intended to do, but my impulse was to forewarn the household so that Celene might not be frightened. The Skokums came on my heels on the dead jump. But I had a good lead of them when I came around the corner of the house.

Then a man tripped me, pounced on me, and sat on me; I was a submissive captive, for the breath was knocked out of me when I fell. The instant the Skokums appeared my captor began to shoot off two automatic revolvers. I was lying on my back and saw by the flashes that he was shooting into the air. The boys had been chasing me rather than intending to rush the house at that time, and they broke and fled in all directions, scampering in a way which suggested that they were not prepared for artillery defense and that the hostilities were over for that night.

After a time there was silence, and the man who was sitting on me rose and yanked me to my feet.

He was a stocky man with a big, black mustache, and he looked savage.

There was a sound of drawing bolts and Judge Kingsley appeared at his office door.

“You have the right one, have you, officer?”

“Sure thing! He was leading the rush--ahead of ’em all. This is the chap you told me to follow in the afternoon.”

The judge came down the steps and stared into my face.

“It’s the right one--the ringleader,” he said.

I knew that she was listening above. She must be listening! And other folks were flocking outside in the street; that fusillade had been a signal as effective as a general fire alarm.

“Look here,” I cried, full of panic, seeing the position I was in, suddenly become the scapegoat of the whole affair. “I have done nothing wrong. I rushed up here to warn you--”

“You rushed up, all right,” declared the detective. “Do you think you hicks could hold a mass-meeting down in that orchard and fool me as to what you were planning to do? I was ready for you. What’s orders, Judge?”

“Take him to the lock-up!”

God of the innocent! I’ll never forget how that sounded. It was as if somebody had hit me on the heart with a hammer. There is some sort of dignity about a real prison! But that little, red, wooden coop in our village where an occasional drunk was cast in or some lousy hobo harbored--it had always seemed to me and to others such a shameful place--to leave such a badge of utter discredit on the person who had been lodged there!

“I’ll never go in there! I’ll die first,” I wailed.

I was telling the bitter truth as I felt it.

I was eager to die in my tracks rather than to have such a foul blot on my name.

The next instant I had sudden revulsion of feeling in regard to that lock-up. In bitter fear, in almost frenzy of apprehension, in default of better retreat, I was quite ready to flee to that loathsome coop.

For I heard my uncle raving in the street!

I never remembered his words; my feelings were too much stirred just then. But the hideous screech of rage in his tones I’ll never forget. I knew he had found out my betrayal of him.

“He is going to kill me,” I told the detective. “It’s about the horse!”

“Yes, I reckon he will peel you if he gets his hands on you,” stated the man, who seemed to know what I was referring to. My uncle was threshing his way through the crowd toward me, making slow progress in the jam. The detective took advantage of that delay and rushed me off, with Constable Nute swinging his key and leading the way. Before I was fairly in my right senses I was in the lock-up alone and my two defenders were on guard outside the door.

My uncle frothed about the place for an hour, circling the little building again and again, plucking at bars and clapboards as a monkey might pick at a gigantic nut which resisted his attempts to get at the juicy meat for which he was hungry.

Never had I thought that I would be thankful to be in jail till then!

Furthermore, my hopes were sustaining me. I was young and trustful, and I was sure that innocence would be victorious. I could not understand how anybody would believe that I was guilty when morning came and I could explain it all. And I resolved to make some of the Skokums speak up in my behalf on threat of exposing the whole gang.

At last my uncle went away, staggering and hiccoughing curses--for he had brought his bottle with him and had been consulting it quite often.

I fell to wondering whether my innocence would stand me in good stead, providing it vindicated me and secured my release from the lock-up? The lock-up was surely proving a sanctuary--and my uncle’s threats had been horrible ones.

Then the crowd which had been hanging around the place with a sort of hope, I suppose, that my uncle would be able to get at me, went away, for the hour was late. Mr. Detective went, too. So did Constable Nute, who was the village night-watch and had his rounds to make. They considered the cage a secure one, I suppose, for there were big bolts on the door and iron bars on the windows.

I sat on a stool and mourned my lot as a prisoner, when I was not dreading my release to be a victim of my incensed uncle. A good many times I had watched Bart Flanders bring a trapped rat up from his cellar and set it free in the village square for the entertainment of his terrier. I was in a position to sympathize with trapped rats.

In the silence of the night something clicked on the glass of a window and a voice outside hailed me cautiously. My first thought was that the Skokums had come to rescue me, and I was not especially pleased, for I felt that they would be impelled more by the spirit of vandalism than by any love for me. I did not answer.

Then the window-frame grunted and squeaked and I saw that somebody was prying with a chisel. I rose from the stool and saw the face of Dodovah Vose.

“I take it that it’s another job they have put up on you, young Sidney.”

“Yes, it is, Mr. Vose,” I cried, and I began to whimper. I couldn’t help it. He spoke as if he understood, as if he were a friend. “I was trying to stop their devilishness, and they--”

“You needn’t bother about going into details--not with me, young Sidney. I have been watching you lately. You have been a good boy. I know you haven’t been rampaging round town nights. No matter about telling me anything. There’s no time to listen. Nute may be drifting back here any minute.”

He was working with his chisel while he was talking.

He pried a couple of bars out of the rotten wood. He pushed the window up.

“Light out o’ there!” he commanded.

“But I hate to run away, and--”

“The way things stand now in the village you’ll be made the goat,” he insisted. “And if you get clear of the gang part there’s your uncle to reckon with. He has been stamping around the tavern and telling about you. I don’t blame him much. What in sanup did you betray own folks for?”

I couldn’t tell him.

“After what you did to him you can’t expect me and others to say nay if he takes it out of your hide. Trigging own folks in a regular hoss dicker comes nearer to being a crime than anything the judge can lay against you. So you’ve got to simplify matters by getting out of town. You mustn’t stay here and get hurt, son. Climb, I tell ye!”

So I climbed.

He led me down into a lane and pushed me into a top buggy whose curtained sides hid me well. He crawled in after me and drove off at a good dip.

“I have written that letter to my brother,” he said, after a time. “Here it is.” He put it into my hands. “How much money have you got about you?”

I was never at any loss in those days as to my exact financial standing.

“Three dollars and sixty-four cents, sir.”

“Here is ten more. You must remember to pay it back. It will take you to the city and give you a little extra to come and go on. I have backed that letter to my brother with full address and directions how to get to the Trident Wrecking Company. Mind your eye, keep your money deep in your pocket, and go straight.”

I realized that we were on the way to the railroad station at Levant Lower Comers.

“I’ll do what I can to stand up for you in the current talk that will be made, young Sidney,” said Landlord Vose. “I won’t say where you have gone, and you can bet that I won’t give it out how I helped you to go there. But I can tell folks how you have been sitting evenings with me instead of cutting up snigdom. I’ll help your name what I can.”

“I have been trying to get my tongue loose so as to thank--”

“Don’t go to spoiling a good thing at the last minute,” he snapped. “Come back and thank me when we both are sure that this jail-robbing was the best thing that could be done under the circumstances. I had only short notice and I took a chance that it was the right thing to do.”

So, after a time, we came to the railroad station, and he left me. I sneaked in the shadows till the night train came along.

After this fashion I left Levant. Looking ahead or looking behind, I did not feel especially joyous.

VI--HAVING TO DO WITH JODREY VOSE’s MAKING OP A DIVER

I SAT up in the smoking-car all night, straight as a cob, making myself as small as I could on one of the side seats nearest the door. I was not used to riding on a railroad train. At every stop, when men came in and looked at me in passing, my heart jumped. Things had been happening pretty fast in my case. In the upheaval of my feelings, I was not exactly sure just what special crime I had committed. I merely knew that I felt like a combination of coward, renegade, and malefactor.

The idea which stuck most painfully in my crop was the certain knowledge of what everybody in Levant would be saying--“He had to skip the town!”

That’s a mighty mean tag to be tied to a chap when it’s tied on by a country community; it never comes off. Even if he makes good in fine shape some old blatherskite is always ready to shift his chaw and drool, “Maybe he’s all right _now_--but ye have to remember that he had to skip the town!”

I had run away!

However, Ase Jepson let drop a remark once which sounded pretty good to me: “I’d never run from a bear-fight, because if you lick the bear there’s the pelt, the steak, the oil, and the reppytation. But who in blazes ever got any sensible satisfaction out of sticking to the job and licking a nestful of hornets?”

I got a little satisfaction out of thinking that I had run away from hornets, even if they would be sure to call me coward behind my back.

But what I knew of the world outside my home town could have been put in the eye of a mosquito without making the insect blink. I felt as helpless as a wooden shingle latching a furnace door in tophet. I had never seen Jodrey Vose. Either I had dreamed it or had heard that he was considered a pretty hard ticket in his early days. As a diver, a man who passed much of his time under water in the mysteries of the sea, he seemed to me like something unreal. I studied the superscription on the letter and felt as if I were carrying a line of introduction to a bullfrog.

And so I went bumping on toward somewhere, my thoughts heavy and my possessions mighty light; I hadn’t even a clean handkerchief.

If I had not so many bigger matters to hurry on to in this tale, I’d like to describe how I was all of two days locating the Trident Wrecking Company and Jodrey Vose, after I arrived in the city. The folks in Levant always seemed to think I was a cheeky youngster, and I guess I was, to a certain extent. I had plenty of temper and when I wanted a thing I always had to go and get it--it wasn’t handed to me. But in that big city I was more meeching than a scared pup in a boiler-factory.

I had no idea how large a real city was, anyway. Furthermore, all of a sudden, I found myself becoming very crafty, according to my own reckoning. I had decided that I was a fugitive from justice and that every policeman was on the watch for me. Therefore I avoided policemen, turning comers whenever I saw brass buttons. As I looked on everybody else in the hurrying multitude as a sharper, on the hunt for country picking, that left me without anybody to question. I had my nose in the air and must have sniffed the water-front after a time. At any rate, I found myself down there, dodging drays, tramping dirty alleys and as completely lost as a bug in a brush-pile.