Part 45 (1/2)
”But think--think,” she urged, ”of the good there is in you to help that great mankind whose voice you say you've heard! All of that good will be--choked out,” she shuddered, ”or rot in those gray walls you dread!”
He looked toward the gate, through which the sheriff now might dash at any moment. She saw in his face the terrible dread of that alternative and, to help him win the way she wished, grasped his arm. But slowly his eyes turned back, moving affectionately across the rows of books lining the walls, and, as though echoing impressions gathered from their great storehouse, he whispered:
”What good there is in a man is there to stay. G.o.d, Himself, couldn't take it out. It's only wickedness that twists it in a different shape, and makes people think it never was! Do you reckon your good'll go when you die?”
”But its opportunities to extend--they will be stopped!” she cried.
”Yours will be stopped!” The horses were in the circle now, and she implored even more frantically: ”Run for it--run!”
”No! The biggest men in those covers,” he pointed again to the shelves, ”wouldn't be there today if they'd run! Jesus would be a by-word, and the world couldn't raise its head to a single hero.” The horses had stopped, and a man was dismounting. ”Good-bye,” the big mountaineer said quietly.
He put out his hand, but she did not see it. She had slipped into a chair and was burying her sobbing face in her arms. Steps sounded on the porch, and a bell far back in the house jingled. He looked at her another long, breathless moment, then turned and walked out through the French window.
”Good mawnin', sheriff,” her tortured brain heard him say.
Old Jess Mason eyed him over high cheek bones and hawk-like nose for the fraction of a second before taking his hand from beneath his coat. Then it came slowly out, empty.
”Good mawnin', yohse'f!” The sheriff was fairly bristling with anger.
”Look-ee-heah,” he savagely demanded, ”what's this funny business about, anyhow? Do you-all reckon you're goin' to poke fun at me an' the law, an' git away with it? Or what?”
”I don't reckon there's been such an awful lot of fun poked around heah, Jess,” Dale sullenly answered.
”You don't! Well, there'd better not be, that's all I got to say!” He wiped his forehead and glared. ”Then s'pose you explain somethin'! I'm ridin' through town a while back, when the telephone gal sticks her head outen the winder an' squeals: 'Git to the Cunnel's a-flyin', Jess--they say Dale Dawson's done kilt Tusk Potter!'”
”That's all right,” Dale said.
”Keep yoh 'pinions to yohse'f till I ask for 'em! I put my hawse's belly to the ground an' we've gone 'bout two mile, when young McElroy comes chargin' up behind a-yellin' for me to stop.” 'What's the matter?' I asks, pullin' 'round an' facin' 'im. 'You've got a blame good hawse, Jess,' he grins, 'I thought I couldn't ketch you!!' Then he comes up clost an' says: ”That message come wrong!' 'How d'you know?' I asks. 'I heerd it,' he says, 'an' Dale ain't never kilt Tusk!' 'Then who did?' I asks agin. 'Me,' he says.”
Jane's nails bit into the palms of her hands as she sprang up, breathlessly listening. The sheriff went on:
”I looks at 'im an' seen he was cold sober, but I knowed the other message come straight, too. So I says: 'Then you're under 'rrest; go back an' set on the cou'thouse steps till I come from the Cunnel's,' I says. 'If you go out thar I won't stay,' he says. 'You will if I asks you, Brent,' I says, 'No, Jess, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do,' he says. Wall, we argyed, an' he was so pig-headed I thought I'd have to shoot 'im right thar; but arter 'while he says he'll go back an' set, an' then I come on. Now I want to know what kind of fun you fellers is tryin' to git outen me!”
Little did the sheriff, Dale or Jane know that Brent rode back to town like mad, threw himself from his horse and dashed up the stair leading to the telephone office above the drug-store. He fairly bounded in upon Miss Gregget, crying:
”Quick! Give me the Colonel's!”
While she was inserting a plug and turning a crank--for Buckville's central switchboard was many years behind the times--he unceremoniously lifted the operator's head-set from her coiled hair and fitted it upon his own head. Several times she spun the little crank, breathlessly repealing:
”I've just been trying them, but they must have left the receiver off!”
”Wait!” he whispered.
The receiver was still off the hook at Arden, just as Jane had left it dangling, and now he was listening--listening to interrupted portions of a scene being enacted in that far away library, and illogically hoping one of its actors might pa.s.s near enough the instrument for him to yell and attract his or her attention. Only an occasional word could he understand, but once a girl's voice very distinctly cried: ”Dale, run for it! Out the back way, and I'll help you!--They're almost at the lane!”
A feeling of pleasure swept through the listener as he realized that she was warning the mountaineer--that there was yet a chance! ”They,” must have meant the sheriff and his darky boy attendant, for it was just about time they should have covered the distance to Arden. But this momentary triumph was succeeded by a heavy, sickening dread as he realized that she must now know the truth; that the horrible disappointment he would have spared her must have fallen--must now be crus.h.i.+ng her--since, otherwise, she would not be there warning. Yet, as he leaned forward trying to catch more and not hearing it, he thought how willingly he would change places with the murderer for just those expressions of pleading from her lips!
”Excuse me, Mr. McElroy,” Miss Gregget was saying, rather coolly because of his impertinence in mussing her hair, ”there are other calls--I'd better take the board!”
He turned then and went down the stairs. He was stunned, but he was smiling as he stepped out on the street which would bring him in contact with men he knew. Crossing diagonally the shaded green where gray haired ”boys” pitched horse shoes at a peg--the ”cou'thouse squar,” bounded by the town's four streets--he deliberately sat upon the whittled steps of that old building, at about the moment Jess was ringing the Colonel's front door bell.
Dale had stood as still as marble, except to moisten his lips which were becoming very dry. He had been willing enough to accept Brent's plan of refuge, before a blood equation developed, but now things were different. His honour, as a man of the mountains knows and sustains his honour, would permit him but one course.