Stepsons of Light Part 21

There is somewhat which must be said here. Doubtless it is bad Art--whatever that means--but it is a thing to be done. It is charged to me that I suppress certain sorry and unsavory truths when I put remembered faces to paper--that I pick the best at their best, and shield with silence their hours of shame and weakness--these men I loved. Well--it is true. I take my own risk by that; but for them, it is what they have deserved. It is what Johnny Dines did for Kitty Seiber.

"Well, that's about all," said Hobby. "Uncle Pete is still skirmishing round. Adam had a tame tank somewhere close by, and Pete thinks he may find some more light on the case, there or somewheres else. If you don't think of anything more I guess I'll go down to the Gans Hotel and sleep a day or two. n.o.body knows where See is. He may be asleep--and then again he may be up to some devilment."

"From what I could hear a while ago," said Johnny, grinning hugely, "I thought you were a prisoner."

"I am," said Hobby.

He went to a window at the end of the big hall and looked out.

Hillsboro is generously planned, and spreads luxuriously over more hills than Rome. This is for two reasons: First, there was plenty of room, no need to crowd; second, and with more of the causative element, those hills were rich in mineral, and were dotted thick with shaft and tunnel between the scattered homes.

Several shafts were near the jail. On the nearest one Mr. Preisser diligently examined the ore dump. Hobby whistled. Mr. Preisser looked up. Hobby waved his hat. Preisser waved back and started toward the jail. Hobby returned to his cell and locked himself in. Mr. Preisser thundered at the jail door.

"Well?" said Gwinne, answering the summons.

"I have been thinking about the criminal, Lull," said Mr. Preisser, beaming. "Considering his tender years and that he is nod fully gompetent and responsible mentally--I have decided nod to bress the charge against him. You may let him go, now."

"Oh, very well," said Gwinne.

He went to the cell--without remark concerning the key in the lock--and set the prisoner free. His face kept a heavy seriousness; there was no twinkle in his eye. a.s.sailant and victim went arm in arm down the hill.

Mr. Charlie See came softly to Hillsboro jail through the velvet night. He did not come the front way; he came over the hill after a wearisome detour. He approached the building on the blind side, cautiously as any cat, and crouched to listen in the shadow of the wall. After a little he began a slow voyage of discovery. At the rear of the building a broad shaft of light swept out across the hill. This was the kitchen. See heard Gwinne's heavy tread, and the cheerful splutterings of beefsteak. Then he heard a dog within; a dog that scratched at the door with mutter and whine.

"Down, Diogenes!" growled Gwinne; and raised his voice in a roaring chorus:

"_And he sunk her in the lonesome lowland low-- And he sunk her in the lowland sea!_"

Charlie retraced his steps to the corner and the friendly shadows. He crept down the long blank side of the jail, pausing from time to time to listen; hearing nothing. He turned the corner to the other end. A dim light showed from an unwindowed grating. The investigator stood on a slope and the window place was high. Reaching up at full stretch, he seized the bars with both hands, stepped his foot on an uneven stone of the foundation, and so pulled himself up to peer in--and found himself nose to nose with Johnny Dines.

The prisoner regarded his visitor without surprise.

"Good evening," he observed politely.

"Good eve--Oh, h.e.l.l! Say, I ought to bite your nose off--you and your good evening! Look here, fellow--are you loose in there?"

"Oh, yes. But the outer door's locked."

"Well, by gracious, you'd better be getting to thunder out of this!

You haven't a chance. You're a gone goose. You ought to hear the talk I've heard round town. They're going to hang you by the neck!"

"Well, why not--if I did that?" inquired Johnny, reasonably enough.

They spoke in subdued undertones.

"But I know d.a.m.n well you didn't do it."

The rescuer spoke with some irritation; he was still startled. Johnny shook his head thoughtfully.

"The evidence was pretty strong--what I heard of it, anyhow."

"I guess, by heck, I know a frame-up when I see it. Say, what the h.e.l.l are you talking about? You wild a.s.s of the desert! Think I got nothing to do but hang on here by my eyelashes and argue with you? One more break like that and down goes your meat house--infernal fool! Listen!

There's a mining shaft right over here--windla.s.s with a ratchet wheel and a pawl. I can hook that windla.s.s rope on these bars and yank 'em out in a jiffy. If the bars are too stubborn I'll strain the rope tight as ever I can and then pour water on it. That'll fetch 'em; won't make much noise, either, I judge. Not now--your jailer man will be calling you to supper in a minute. Maybe we'd better wait till he goes to sleep--or will he lock you up? Fellow, what you want to do is go. You can make Old Mexico to-morrow. I'll side you if you say so.

I've got nothing to keep me here."

"Now ain't that too bad--and I always wanted to go to Mexico, too,"

said Johnny wistfully. "But I reckon I can't make it this riffle. You see, this old rooster has treated me pretty white--not locked me up, and everything. I wouldn't like to take advantage of it. Come to think of it, I told him I wouldn't."

"Well, say!" Charlie stopped, at loss for words. "I get your idea--but man, they'll hang you!"

"I'm sorry for that, too," said Johnny regretfully. "But you see how it is. I haven't any choice. Much obliged, just the same." Then his face brightened. "Wait! Wait a minute. Let me think. Look now--if Gwinne locks me up in a cell, bimeby--why, you might come round and have another try, later on. That will be different."

"I'll go you once on that," returned the rescuer eagerly. "Which is your cell?"

"Why, under the circ.u.mstances it wouldn't be just right to tell you--would it, now?" said the prisoner, doubtfully. "I reckon you'll have to project round and find that out for yourself."

"Huh!" snorted Charlie See.

"Of course if I make a get-away it looks bad--like admitting the murder. On the other hand, if I'm hanged, my friends would always hate it. So there we are. On the whole, I judge it would be best to go.

Say, Gwinne'll be calling me to chuck. Reckon I better beat him to it.

You run on, now, and roll your hoop. I'll be thinking it over.

G'night!"

His face disappeared from the embrasure. Charlie See retired Indian-fashion to the nearest cover, straightened up, and wandered discontentedly down the hill to Hillsboro's great white way.

XI

"We retired to a strategic position prepared in advance."

--_Communiques of the Crown Prince._

Charlie See was little known in the county seat. It was not his county, to begin with, and his...o...b..t met Hillsboro's only at the intersection of their planes. Hillsboro was a mining town, first, last and at all intervening periods. Hillsboro's "seaport," Lake Valley, was the cowman's town; skyward terminus of the High Line, twig from a branch railroad which was itself a feeder for an inconsiderable spur.

The great tides of traffic surged far to north and south. This was a remote and sheltered backwater, and Hillsboro lay yet twelve miles inland from Lake Valley. Here, if anywhere, you found peace and quiet; Hillsboro was as far from the tumult and hurly-burly as a corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.

Along the winding way, where lights of business glowed warm and mellow, feverish knots and cl.u.s.ters of men made a low-voiced buzzing; a buzzing which at See's approach either ceased or grew suddenly clear to discussion of crossroads trivialities. From one of these confidential knots, before the Gans Hotel, a unit detached itself and strolled down the street.

"Howdy, Mr. See," said the unit as Charlie overtook it. "Which way now?"

"Oh, just going round to the hardware store to get a collar b.u.t.ton."

"You don't know me," said the sauntering unit. "My name is Maginnis."