The Spoilers of the Valley Part 3

"One day I interfered in behalf of a fellow prisoner--a horse thief--who was wrongly accused at this particular time of breaking some trivial prison law. My good conduct sheet was cancelled. I was told that I must serve my full time. That's what I got for trying, for the second time, to help my fellow-man." He laughed. "That--and a peculiar-sounding word which that strange little jailbird gave to me, on condition that I would never sell it, stating it was all he had and that it might be useful to me some day if I ever had the handling of horses.

"Yes!--I should have been wise that time. It was my second offence of helping my neighbour. Three years and nine months in jail for a kindly act! Fifteen months more in h.e.l.l in exchange for a word! What bargains!"

He grew bitter again.

"The h.e.l.l-hounds!--they thought I didn't tumble to their little game."

He stopped again, closing his mouth tightly as if inquiring of himself why he should be telling this young lady so much.

"Please--please go on," Eileen pleaded, divining his thoughts.

"Why?" he asked bluntly, surveying the slight, lissom figure before him.

"Oh, because--because I am interested. I am so sorry for you and for so many others like you," she said.

"Well!--I served my full time--five years--three years with 365 days each and two leap years with an extra day in them,--1,827 days and nights, 43,848 hours; 2,630,880 minutes; 157,852,800 second strokes on the clock. You see I remember it all. Great G.o.d, how I used to figure it out!

"Eight days ago my time was up. I asked them regarding my release. And simply because I inquired instead of waiting their good pleasure, they told me I had two weeks more to serve. The d.a.m.nable lie! As if I didn't know, as if every jailbird doesn't know the day and the very minute his release is due!

"Two weeks more!" he went on, his face flushed with indignation and his breath coming in short jerks.

The clock on Eileen's mantelshelf struck midnight, slowly and clearly.

The convict looked at it and gasped. When it stopped striking, he turned to Eileen and his eyes twinkled for a second.

"The Governor of the prison has a little clock just the same as that in his private room," he said. "Do you know, I'm afraid all the time that I'm going to wake up from this and find myself back there."

He jerked his torn garments together.

"Guess I'd better be going, though. I've stayed far too long already.

I feel rested now."

"Won't you finish your story first?" pleaded Eileen. "I think you are safer here--for a while longer--than you would be outside. It won't hurt to let those horrid, prying, suspicious creatures get well away from here."

"I have already said more than I intended to," he remarked.

The pair presented a strange contrast as they sat opposite each other in the lamplight; the one, wet-eyed, sympathetic and earnest; the other, gaunt, indignant and breathless as he gasped out his story with the hunger of one to whom sympathy was a rediscovered friend.

"Where was I at?" he asked. "Ah, yes!

"The Governor's dirty-worker wouldn't listen when I tried to explain.

He ordered me back.

"At work in the office next day, I took advantage of a warder's slackness and broke clear away.

"I didn't care what happened then. I was crazed. An old lady in a cottage--G.o.d bless her!--fed me and gave me these clothes--her son's castaways--and three dollars; all the money she had.

"I walked twenty miles without stop or let-up. After that I slept during the day and walked at night. Three days after my breakaway, I got on to a freight train and stole a ride as far as Sicamous. I slept overnight in a barn there. Next morning I tried to bribe a boy to get me some food at the grocery store. I gave him a dollar. He never came back. I heard some men talking at the door of the barn about a suspicious character who had been seen skulking about. That decided me. I got out when night came and slipped under an empty fruit car which was being shunted on the siding. I got off yesterday, slipping away between a little village up the line and here. The engineer got his eye on me and stopped the train. He let some men off: they were two detectives, I think. They had been riding in the caboose. They came after me. I fell exhausted somewhere in the bush. When I came to it was broad daylight and the men were gone."

He looked up at Eileen suddenly.

"There isn't much more. Early this morning I managed to get into a barn by the railway tracks. I got in through a skylight in the roof. I went to sleep among the straw there. Soon after, the sound of a key in the padlock outside woke me. I scrambled up and through the skylight again, and away. There were three men--one with a rifle. They hunted me, finding me and losing me several times. The devil with the rifle got a line on me down the hill a short time ago.

"When I got to your door I was all in." He smiled. "You're a real sport. You didn't give me away."

He got up and threw out his hands. "Oh, what's the good anyway! All jailbirds tell the tale and shout their innocence."

Eileen's heart was moved. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was at a loss to know what to do or say.

As the man turned from her, his elbow struck something hanging on the wall. He caught at it quickly as it was falling.

It was an old violin of very delicate workmanship.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed, handing it to her. "I am clumsy in a house.

Haven't been in one for so long. Glad I didn't smash it."

"I almost wish you had," said Eileen enigmatically.

"Don't you like music?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!"

"Violin music?"

"Yes!--but not from that violin. It is not like other violins: it has an unsavoury history."

"Do you play?"

"Not the violin," said Eileen, standing with her back to the table, leaning lightly there, clad in her dressing gown, her plaited hair hanging over her shoulder and her eyes on her strange visitor in manifest interest.

"My father is very fond of sc.r.a.ping on a violin. The one he plays is hanging up there."

She pointed to another violin beside the mantelshelf in the adjoining room.

"And this one?" he queried curiously, pointing to the one she had laid on the table.

"This one is several hundred years old. It has been in the family for ever so long. The story goes with it that the member of our family who owns it will attain much wealth during his life, but will lose it again if he doesn't pa.s.s it on when he is at the very height of his prosperity. My father says it has always proved true, and he is hoping for the day when its promise will be fulfilled in his case, for he longs for wealth and all it brings; and he has striven all his life to get it."

"I hope that he has his wish and is able to tell when he gets to the highest point of his success, so that he may get rid of the violin in time."

Eileen smiled.

"Daddy says that has been the trouble with our forefathers, who always got wealthy but never seemed to be able to hold it when they got it.

That is my daddy over there."

She pointed to framed picture on the wall.

"He is big and brawny, and not afraid of anybody. He is--oh, so good.

He is the best in all the world."