The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 61

"Then a fella's got to pay to prove he didn't do somethin' that he's arrested for, and never done?"

"Often enough. And he's lucky if he has the money to do it. Think it over--and let me know how you are getting along. Miss Gray will be interested also."

"All right. Thanks, Doc. I ain't forgittin' you folks."

Andover waved his hand as he swung the car round and swept out of town.

Pete watched him as he sped out across the mesa.

Sheriff Owen was standing in the livery-stable door across the street as Pete turned and started toward him. Midway across the street Pete felt a sharp pain shoot through his chest. It seemed as though the air had been suddenly shut from his lungs and that he could neither speak nor breathe. He heard an exclamation and saw Owen coming toward him.

Owen, who had seen him stop and sway, was asking a question. A dim blur of faces--an endless journey along a street and up a narrow stairway--and Pete lay staring at yellow wall-paper heavily sprinkled with impossible blue roses. Owen was giving him whiskey--a sip at a time.

"How do you feel now?" queried the sheriff.

"I'm all right. Somethin' caught me quick--out there."

"Your lungs have been working overtime. Too much fresh air all at once. You'll feel better tomorrow."

"I reckon you won't have to set up and watch the front door," said Pete, smiling faintly.

"Or the back door. You're in the Sanborn House--room 11, second floor, and there's only one other floor and that's downstairs. If you want any thing--just pound on the floor. They'll understand."

"About payin' for my board--"

"That's all right. I got your money--and your other stuff that I might need for evidence. Take it easy."

"Reckon I'll git up," said Pete. "I'm all right now."

"Better wait till I come back from the office. Be back about six. Got to write some letters. Your case--called next Thursday." And Sheriff Owen departed, leaving Pete staring at yellow wallpaper sprinkled with blue roses.

CHAPTER XLII

"OH, SAY TWO THOUSAND"

Just one week from the day on which Pete arrived in Sanborn he was sitting in the witness chair, telling an interested judge and jury, and a more than interested attorney for the defense, the story of his life--"every hour of which," the attorney for the defense shrewdly observed in addressing the court, "has had a bearing upon the case."

Pete spoke quietly and at times with considerable unconscious humor.

He held back nothing save the name of the man who had killed Brent, positively refusing to divulge Brevoort's name. His att.i.tude was convincing--and his story straightforward and apparently without a flaw, despite a spirited cross-examination by the State. The trial was brief, brisk, and marked by no wrangling. Sheriff Owen's testimony, while impartial, rather favored the prisoner than otherwise.

In his address to the jury, Pete's attorney made no appeal in respect to the defendant's youth, his struggle for existence, or the defendant's willingness to stand trial, for Pete had unwittingly made that appeal himself in telling his story. The attorney for the defense summed up briefly, thanking the jury for listening to him--and then suddenly whirled and pointed his finger at the sheriff.

"I ask you as sheriff of Sanborn County why you allowed the defendant his personal liberty, unguarded and unattended, pending this trial."

"Because he gave his word that he would not attempt to escape," said Sheriff Owen.

"That's it!" cried the attorney. "The defendant _gave his word_. And if Sheriff Owen, accustomed as he is to reading character in a man, was willing to take this boy's word as a guarantee of his presence here, on trial for his life, is there a man among us who (having heard the defendant testify) is willing to stand up and say that he doubts the defendant's word? If there is I should like to look at that man! No!

"Gentlemen, I would ask you to recall the evidence contained in the letter written by former employers of the defendant, substantiating my a.s.sertion that this boy has been the victim of circ.u.mstances, and not the victim of perverse or vicious tendencies. Does he look like a criminal? Does he act like a criminal? I ask you to decide."

The jury was out but a few minutes, when they filed into court and returned a verdict of "Not guilty."

The attorney for the defense shook hands with Pete, and gathered up his papers.

Outside the courtroom several of the jury expressed a desire to make Pete's acquaintance, curiously anxious to meet the man who had known the notorious Spider personally. Pete was asked many questions. One juror, a big, bluff cattleman, even offered Pete a job--"in case he thought of punchin' cattle again, instead of studyin' law"--averring that Pete "was already a better lawyer than that shark from El Paso, at any turn of the trial."

Finally the crowd dwindled to Owen, the El Paso lawyer, two of Owen's deputies, and Pete, who suggested that they go over to the hotel until train-time.

When Pete came to pay the attorney, whom Andover had secured following a letter from Pete, the attorney asked Pete how much he could afford.

Pete, too proud to express ignorance, and feeling mightily impressed by the other's ability, said he would leave that to him.

"Well, including expenses, say two thousand dollars," said the attorney.

Pete wrote the check and managed to conceal his surprise at the amount, which the attorney had mentioned in such an offhand way. "I'm thankin'

you for what you done," said Pete.

"Don't mention it. Now, I'm no longer your legal adviser, Annersley, and I guess you're glad of it. But if I were I'd suggest that you go to some school and get an education. No matter what you intend to do later, you will find that an education will be extremely useful, to say the least. I worked my way through college--tended furnaces in winter and cut lawns in summer. And from what Andover tells me, you won't have to do that. Well, I think I'll step over to the station; train's due about now."

"You'll tell Doc Andover how it come out?"

"Of course. He'll want to know. Take care of yourself. Good-bye!"

Owen and his deputies strolled over to the station with the El Paso attorney. Pete, standing out in front of the hotel, saw the train pull in and watched the attorney step aboard.

"First, Doc Andover says to hire a good lawyer, which I done, and good ones sure come high." Pete sighed heavily--then grinned. "Well, say two thousand--jest like that! Then the lawyer says to git a education.

Wonder if I was to git a education what the professor would be tellin'

me to do next. Most like he'd be tellin' me to learn preachin' or somethin'. Then if I was to git to be a preacher, I reckon all I could do next would be to go to heaven. Shucks! Arizona's good enough for me."

But Pete was not thinking of Arizona alone--of the desert, the hills and the mesas, the canons and arroyos, the illimitable vistas and the color and vigor of that land. Persistently there rose before his vision the trim, young figure of a nurse who had wonderful gray eyes . . . "I'm sure goin' loco," he told himself. "But I ain't so loco that she's goin' to know it."

"I suppose you'll be hitting the trail over the hill right soon," said Owen as he returned from the station and seated himself in one of the ample chairs on the hotel veranda. "Have a cigar."

Pete shook his head.

"They're all right. That El Paso lawyer smokes 'em."

"They ought to be all right," a.s.serted Pete.

"Did he touch you pretty hard?"

"Oh, say two thousand, jest like that!"

The sheriff whistled. "Shooting-sc.r.a.pes come high."

"Oh, I ain't sore at him. What makes me sore is this here law that sticks a fella up and takes his money--makin' him pay for somethin' he never done. A poor man would have a fine chance, fightin' a rich man in court, now, wouldn't he?"

"There's something in that. The _Law_, as it stands, is all right."