Frank of Freedom Hill Part 12

Yonder down the street gla.s.s k.n.o.bs of telephone poles glistened in the sun. At the end of the street rose the white columns of a long building with a big, black, dust-covered car in front. Women in white, children with nurses, sallow mountain folk, were abroad in the first coolness of the afternoon. It was the busy season, when the heat of cities drives people to the fresh air of the mountains and a hundred such villages spring into life and laughter.

Through this holiday crowd went the red-faced, dusty man. Twenty paces behind followed the gaunt Irish setter. People stopped in the street to look back at him. Children pulled on their nurses' hands, thrilling to make friends with such a big dog, then pulled back, distrustful of the look in his eyes. Man, then dog, pa.s.sed the drug store where behind plate-gla.s.s windows cool-dressed men and women sat at slender tables.

Next to the drug store was a brick garage with a gasolene meter in front. About the entrance loitered a group of men watching. One was bigger than the rest and wore a wide-brimmed hat.

Through this group pushed the man with the ten-gallon can. Close behind now followed the gaunt Irish setter. It happened quickly, like one of those mountain tragedies that brood over such places, remnants of feuds that hang on to the skirts of civilization. Two m.u.f.fled pistol shots broke the peace and security of the village and brought men running to the garage. For the man with the ten-gallon can had turned at last, and Frank had sprung straight at his throat.

From the confusion of crowding men came the hoa.r.s.e shout,

"Turn me loose! Let me kill that dog! Can't you see? He's mad as h.e.l.l!"

"I've got the dog all right!" cried the big man in the broad-brimmed hat. "If he's mad I'll 'tend to him!"

Plunging, barking, begging to be turned loose, old Frank was dragged backward across the cement floor. In the door of a gla.s.s-enclosed office the big man, holding tight to his collar, turned.

"Here--you--Sam!" he panted. "Run to the hotel. Tell Mr. Earle--the gentleman that just came with his wife--we got a man down here and a red Irish setter. Quick! Catch him before he leaves!"

Then they were in the office, and the door was shut. The big man had sunk breathless into a chair still holding to the dog's collar. He was quiet now. But the blood that dripped slowly on the floor was no redder than his eyes. The door opened and he plunged forward. But it was a stranger--a young man with a star on his coat.

"Sam got 'em, Sheriff," he said, "they're comin' now. Must I bring the man in here?"

"No. Keep him out there. This fellow's still seein' red."

"Hit?"

"Ear. That's all."

"Well, he left his mark on that devil, all right!"

The young man went out. Still the sheriff held the dog's collar. Still through the gla.s.s windows the crowd stared in. But suddenly it parted and then Frank saw them.

"Hold on!" panted the sheriff. "No use to tear the house down. They'll be in here in a minute!"

The door opened, they were in the office, the sheriff had turned him loose. He was jumping up against his tall master, long ears thrown back, upraised eyes aglow, heart pounding against his lean ribs. But it was the look in his young mistress's eyes that brought him down to the floor before her in sudden recollection that went straight to his heart, that set him all atremble with choking eagerness.

"Take us to him, Frank!" she gasped, her hands clenched tight against her breast.

He led them--master and mistress and strange officers, neighbours from back home, old Squire Kirby, Bob Kelley, John Davis--led them out of the town, up the shaded road across which slanting sunbeams gently sifted.

He led them to that car he had followed secretly through the days and watched without sleep through the nights. Only his master's low-voiced command held him back with them.

"Steady, Frank! Steady, old man!"

But they must have made some noise, quiet as they tried to be. For before they reached the car the heavy man scrambled out, stared for a moment in stupid bewilderment, then threw both hands high up over his head.

"Don't shoot!" he pleaded hoa.r.s.ely, his heavy face aquiver. "We ain't done the kid no harm!"

Then it was that Frank broke away and rushed at last to that curtained car. With shining eyes he sprang into the front, over the seat, into the rear. Tommy's arms were about his neck, Tommy was crying over and over to the woman, all out of breath:

"It's F'ank, Nita! He didn't go home. I saw him in the bushes!"

"It's your mother, too," she said. "Come after you." She tried to smile.

"I told you it would be to-day--didn't I?" She s.n.a.t.c.hed him to her and kissed him fiercely. She opened the door. "Good-bye, old scout," she whispered. Then she turned to Frank. "Go!" she panted and her lips trembled. "Go!"

Outside the car Frank stood by, quivering with pride while the boy pa.s.sed from the mother's high up into the father's arms. He saw the light in their faces, the flash of the sun on the boy's curls, the smiles of the men who looked on. Then the shadow of terrible days and nights fell across his happiness and for the second time that day he saw red. For the woman had stepped out of the car, and the big sheriff had caught her by the arm.

The dog glanced up, bewildered, into the faces about him. But none of them had seen. He ran to the woman; he took his stand beside her, looking up at the sheriff with fierce, pleading eyes. But the sheriff still held her arm, and the dog growled, partly in anger, partly in trouble. Then Tommy saw, too. He wriggled loose from his father; he came running to their help.

"Let go of her!" he screamed, and caught the woman's skirt with both hands, "Papa, make him let her go!"

But it was his mistress who understood, who came to them with shining face and caught the woman by both hands. He knew it was all right now, even when the woman sank down on the car step and sobbed brokenly, her face buried in her hands. For the sheriff had stepped back, and his mistress was at her side, an arm about her shoulder.

"No, Sheriff," she said, looking up at him, and the sun sparkled in her eyes.

"We won't say anything about this, gentlemen," Earle said quietly to the men.

That night Frank lay in the crowded lobby of the hotel, ears p.r.i.c.ked toward the wide-screened dining-room door. He had already had his supper, out in the rear courtyard near the kitchen where many dishes rattled.

"Two porterhouse steaks--raw," Steve Earle had said.

"And a big dish of ice cream," Marian Earle had added with a smile, for old Frank was an epicure in his way.

And now the sheriff was telling the crowd about him.

"He followed that car for two hundred miles. That was nothin'--been huntin' all his life. But he kept out of sight--that's the thing! They never saw him, and he never left them. That's what put us on the trail.

That's the reason the boy's eatin' supper with his father and mother in there instead of bein' out in the woods with them brutes."

He puffed at his cigar.

"Some men fishing in the mountains pa.s.sed him. He tried to flag 'em.

Yes, sir--that's what he tried to do. But they didn't catch on. Might have, but didn't. Next day they read in the papers about a boy and Irish setter being lost. Then they caught on and telephoned Mr. Earle."

"The woman that came in with the mother and went upstairs with her,"

asked a man, "who's she?"

The big sheriff took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at the questioner with narrow, disapproving eyes.

"She didn't have a thing to do with it, sir!" he declared.

From the dining room came the sound of chairs pushed back, and Frank rose to his feet. He met them at the door, he stood beside the boy while the people gathered around, he went upstairs with them, the boy holding tight to his heavy red mane.

"That old Joe!" Tommy was saying breathlessly, as they went down the carpeted hall. "He can't get us any more. The sheriff he locked him up in a jail. He can't get Nita, either. Mama's goin' to take care of her.

Mama says so!"

He was still talking, his eyes big, when they went into a brightly lighted room where a little bed set beside a big one. He was still talking while his mother undressed him. Then before he got into bed a spasm of virtuous reaction seized him. He and F'ank were never going to leave the yard any more, he declared. They never were going to get in any more automobiles with people!

"No," smiled Earle from his great height down at the little figure in borrowed pyjamas, "I guess you're cured, old man!"

The rug beside Tommy's bed was very soft, and Frank was very tired. But sometime in the silent darkness of that night he barked hoa.r.s.ely in the agony of a dream. For they were on top of a mountain, and a weird moon had risen, and a woman had screamed.