Part 43 (1/2)

”'Ere, 'ere,” remonstrated Joey nervously. ”We can't 'ave any old quarrels took up in my 'ouse.”

”_I'm_ not quarreling, Joey,” said Braddock, still watching David's face. David had the feeling, quite suddenly, that he was looking into eyes he had never seen before--intent, hard, steady eyes that were full of purpose. They were no longer blood-shot and protruding: they seemed to slink back under the pallid, bony brow, looking forth with a sort of cunning that suggested a hiding animal, nothing less.

The change in Tom Braddock was astounding. David had always thought of him as the bullying, bloated giant, purple-faced and blear-eyed. His face was thin and gray--with the pallor of the prison still upon it; his cheeks were sunken, and the heavy stubble of beard that filled the hollows was a dirty white. One would have guessed this apparition of Tom Braddock to be sixty years of age, at least. His hair, still rather closely cropped, was no longer black, but a defiant, obtrusive gray.

The heavy neck was now thin and corded; the broad shoulders drooped as if deprived of all their youthful power. His aggressive mustache of the old days was gone, laying bare a broad, firmly set lip. The cheap jeans clothing that fell to him when he left the penitentiary hung loosely on his frame, for he had lost many pounds; the coat was b.u.t.toned close about his throat, albeit the day was warm. He wore no collar. His ”hickory” s.h.i.+rt was soiled. He had slept in these garments for many nights.

The contrast was appalling. That this cadaverous, prideless individual could once have been the vain-glorious showman was almost inconceivable. It is no wonder that David stared.

”Well, I guess you've changed about as much as I have,” said Braddock, reading the other's thoughts. He uttered a bitter laugh as he turned to drag a chair up to the table, with something of the a.s.surance of old.

”I hope I've changed as much for the better as you have, Braddock,”

said David, and he meant it.

Braddock whirled to glare at him in wonder. He was silent for a moment.

Then he flung himself into the chair, his jaws setting themselves firmly, no trace of the sarcastic smile remaining.

”I guess you have, David,” he said shortly. ”You're not what you were when you joined us five years ago.” A sneer came to his lips. ”What a high and mighty chap you've come to be. No wonder you won't shake hands with a jail-bird.”

”Stop talking, Tom Braddock,” said Ruby, a gleam of anxiety in her eyes. ”Here's what's left of the lamb and here's--”

”Wait a minute, Ruby,” said he. With his elbows on the edge of the table and his chin in his broad, sinewy hands he leaned forward and spoke again to David. ”I've been out three weeks. I was up there for two years and a half. I'm just telling you this so's you'll know why I've changed. The whiskey's all out of me. There never will be any more inside of me, do you understand that? Ten years ago I was a man--wasn't I, Joey? I was a dog when you knew me, Jenison. Now, I'm a man again.

See these hands? Well, they've been doing honest work, even if it was in a convict barrel factory. I'm ten times stronger than I was before.

There isn't a soft muscle in my body. What you miss is the fat--the whiskey fat. I'm gray-headed, but who wouldn't be? But that is not what I'm trying to get at. I saw d.i.c.k Cronk this morning. I don't know how he found me. He told me you were up here to take a hand in my affairs.

What I want to know, right here, Jenison, is this: Where is your friend Bob Grand and where is _she?_”

He spoke quite calmly, but there was a deliberate menace in his tones.

David was startled. An angry retort leaped to his lips, but he choked it back.

”You are very much mistaken, Braddock, if you consider me the friend of Colonel Grand. I hate him quite as bitterly as you do. I--”

”Oh, no, you don't,” snapped the other. ”No one in all this world, from its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate.”

”He is no friend of mine,” reiterated David. ”I think you know me well enough to believe that I do not lie. I have not seen him in five years.”

Braddock stared hard at him. Suddenly he leaned back with a deep breath of relief. ”I believe you,” he said. ”You don't know how to lie. Well, what are you doing here, then, mixing in my affairs?”

”We'll talk about that later on,” said David. ”Here is food, man. Eat.

You are half-starved. Have you no money?”

”Money? Say, do you think they pay you up _there_? I _am_ hungry. Not a mouthful since yesterday noon. Before I touch this grub, Joey, I want to say to you that I don't deserve it of you. I sold you all out. I wasn't square with you. But it was drink and--and that devil behind me all the time. I took your pocket-book that night, David. I stole it. I guess I was crazy most of the time in those days. I don't say I'll ever pay it back. I'm not apologizing for it, either. I'm just telling you.

I meant to get all you had, but--well, I wasn't mean enough to crack you over the head. It would have been the only way--”

”Don't speak of it, Braddock,” interrupted Jenison painfully. ”That's all past and gone.”

”I've paid for some of my sins--but not all of 'em,” said Braddock.

”Not all of 'em.”