The Price of the Prairie Part 49

"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and n.o.body understands the law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice.

"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we settle this alone?"

Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing there.

"I--well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know law books. This is our own business and n.o.body else's. I'd knock my best friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, man alive! this is sacred. That's it--an affair of the heart. Now be careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was slipping.

"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully."

The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his self-a.s.surance and reliance on his twin G.o.ds, money and deception, to carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the matter to his own view.

"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet.

"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to be the last or not will depend on conditions."

Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed.

"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led me to investigate the business fallen to you. Irving begged me, when his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another."

"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut.

"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket.

The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge:

"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of their signatures are here."

Judson sat still and sullen.

"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then.

Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped the matter--first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make up to Marjie the loss of their money."

"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling pa.s.sion still controlling him.

"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a wage-earning capacity which is better than all the ill-begotten property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all his affidavits and other doc.u.ments were useless. He would have cut off that bit of a.s.sistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone."

Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction.

"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer."

There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control.

"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly hissed in his rage.

John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the little man trembled. No bl.u.s.ter, nor blows, could have equalled the supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look.

"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the a.s.sa.s.sin, the fist for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going to listen while I speak."

It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, while my father seated himself and went on.

"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You witnessed it. It listed his property--the merchandise, the real estate, the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death.

He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it for the store. n.o.body can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in that business during those years.

"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell didn't 'tote fair' with him, and he thought you were here in town. You wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you."

My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again.

"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these circ.u.mstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant.

She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, grasping villain!

"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, after cutting Dodd and Conlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to death--fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit."

"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was choking with rage.

"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly.

"No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days'

vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health.

You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts.

"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and witnessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and safe in the bank vault.

"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a valuable pin set with brilliants I have here."

He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have seen your kind before; but not often, thank G.o.d!"

My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way out, when his accuser spoke again.

"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her n.o.ble husband--wearing now the martyr's crown of victory--you persuaded her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in his name--that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler.

With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than taking Irving Whately's property.

"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where that is concerned a man may always express himself."

Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further.

"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in common."

My father held back a smile of a.s.sent to this.

"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties.

That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't command you to it, just opened the way to help you."

My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a moment, however, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge.

"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented the fulfilling of your plans."

"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly.

"He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of Phil Baronet."

"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect.