The Spoilers of the Valley Part 67

"'Yes, yes!--all right! For heaven's sake get away quickly. You're wasting precious time, and time with you is everything. One can never tell.'

"'When will you come up to the Okanagan?' he asked next.

"'Just as soon as this blows over and I get squared away. Maybe in three weeks' time--not later than a month.'

"We shook hands and I watched him as he hurried away across the fields."

Phil stopped and looked into s.p.a.ce.

"Go on, go on, man," exclaimed Jim, his face tense.

"After that, the first thing that caught my eye was Brenchfield's note on the table. I had the key to it in my mind, so it was easy enough to decipher. You have it Jim, word for word:--

"'Dear Phil,

I have gone back to Vernock. I have borrowed the money I needed and I fear I have hurt the banker in the borrowing. Forgive me, but there was no other way out. Whatever you hear, keep silent.

Join me as soon as you can. Burn this.

Graham Brenchfield.'"

"Pretty d.a.m.ning stuff, Jim, even if it is in cipher. Well, the last I remember of that note was crumpling it up till it was a mere nothing at all. I must have tossed it away unconsciously and it got lodged in the toe of my gum boot, although I always felt certain within myself till now that I had burned it along with every other sc.r.a.p of paper I could find in the shack coming from Brenchfield. My next job was to cover up all other traces he had left behind. There was the basin of discolored water on the wash-stand. I threw the water out at the back door and scoured the basin. I next put the stolen money in a large blue envelope and thrust it between my trunk and the wall, out of sight until I should be able to get rid of it through the bank letter-box when night came. I thought I was through then, when I found my dirty shirt in the corner--the twin of the one I was then wearing.

It was smeared with blood-stains. Evidently Graham had used that first on his hands, and the water afterwards. I held up the tell-tale garment between my fingers, intending to set it ablaze in the stove. I changed my mind, for shirts were shirts in those days and somewhat scarce. I decided to give it a thorough washing instead. Somewhere, I had heard that hot water would not remove blood-stains, so I emptied some cold water into the basin and got my soap ready to begin. I was just in the act of dipping the shirt into the water when the screen door rattled and three men stepped into the kitchen. My heart jumped, for one of them was Jim Renfrew, Carnaby's Police Chief. The other two I guessed as plain-clothes men from Vancouver.

"'Sorry to disturb you, Ralston,--but we want you at the Station for a few minutes. You don't mind coming, eh!' asked Renfrew.

"'What do you want me for?' I asked.

"'Oh, come and see!' said the Chief. 'Just want to ask you something about something! We won't eat you.'

"Two of them laid hands on me and before I knew just exactly how it happened, cold metal snapped over my wrists and held me secure. The stained shirt was s.n.a.t.c.hed out of my hand. I turned angrily, but a wrench of the handcuffs pulled me up.

"'Cut that out now! Come along quiet! Shut your trap, and say nothing you might be sorry for later. Come on!'

"One of the plain-clothes men remained behind, while the other and the Chief took me through the town to the local jail.

"It was some little time before I grasped the awful seriousness of my position and began to realise how events which I had never thought of might possibly involve me in this affair at the bank. I was totally ignorant of how much the police knew; that was the straining and nerve-racking part.

"The following morning I was brought before the local magistrate, charged with attempted murder and robbery, and was immediately committed for trial to the a.s.sizes. And that evening, handcuffed between two policemen, I was transferred to the Provincial Prison at Ukalla, to await trial.

"G.o.d alone knows what I suffered during all that dreadful time, Jim, but I had made up my mind that it was my duty to take the blame on myself, for Brenchfield would never have committed the crime had I fulfilled my share of the bargain at the outset and put my money in when it was due. I thought of the goodness of the Brenchfields, of all they had done for me, of what it would mean to them if Graham were convicted. I only dreamed of a few months' imprisonment at the outset, so I decided I would keep my mouth shut.

"During all the time I remained awaiting trial, no one visited me but a parson and an exasperated lawyer who had been appointed to defend me, but who could get nothing out of me.

"I was tried. I refused to speak, and in so doing, I hadn't the ghost of a chance for liberty.

"Macaskill the foreman swore that I had been absent from my work for a time on the morning of the a.s.sault; I had been expecting money which hadn't arrived and I seemed badly in need of it.

"Doctor Rutledge of Carnaby had stopped at the door of the bank that morning and had seen me inside. He had heard Maguire and I in dispute and had heard further my threat to crack Maguire over the head with the very ruler with which the a.s.sault had been committed.

"Maguire, swathed in bandages but apparently little the worse, recounted our dispute. He swore that I had committed the a.s.sault on him, as it had happened just after he had paid over the money to me and turned back to his work.

"Chief Renfrew and his two detectives had caught me, red-handed, in my shack, washing my blood-stained shirt--a shirt similar to the one I was wearing at the time of my arrest. They even found the entire proceeds of the theft in a blue envelope behind my trunk; although they had to admit having been unable to trace the additional five hundred dollars which Maguire stated he had given to me.

"It was great stuff, Jim. Circ.u.mstantially d.a.m.ning as could be. They gave me five years in h.e.l.l for my share in it, also a nice long harangue from the judge about behaving myself when I came out."

During this long, clear-cut, pa.s.sionless recital, Jim Langford had sat beside Phil, glooming into s.p.a.ce, his face like chiselled grey granite.

"My G.o.d!" he exclaimed at last and only his lips moved.

"Yes, Jim,--and Graham Brenchfield sat among the spectators all through the trial, heard me sentenced, rose and went out into his merry world without as much as a twitch of his eyelid for Phil Ralston.

"Ah, well! it's over and done with. But can you blame me, Jimmy, for a little bitterness in my heart against that fine gentleman for his cowardice and treachery?"

"Blame you," exclaimed Jim, pa.s.sionately. "Great G.o.d! if he had done this with me, Phil, I would have schemed and plotted till I succeeded in getting him away to some lonely shack, then I would have tied him up and cut little pieces out of him every day till there was nothing left of him but his sense of pain and his throbbing black heart."

Phil laughed, rose and stretched himself.

"That's just the penny-dreadful part of you talking, Jim; the Captain Mayne Plunkett. You know quite well you wouldn't do anything of the kind."

But Jim was in no mood for flippancy.

"Sit down!" he commanded. "Now that you have told me so much, tell me everything. We are in this together now and I want to know what has pa.s.sed between you and that sc.u.m since you came up here."

"You know the most of it; there isn't much more to tell," said Phil, but obedient to his friend's wishes, he sat down again and starting in with his first meeting, as a fugitive, with Eileen Pederstone, he told of all the attempts that Brenchfield had made on his life, of his wild schemes and endeavours to recover this very paper that lay on the counterpane beside them, the existence of which Phil had been unaware but had bluffed and double-bluffed at in order to keep Brenchfield in his place. Right down to what had taken place that afternoon in the forge--not a detail did Phil miss out--and last of all, he confided to Jim the great longing in his heart that had been with him since first he had met Eileen Pederstone, and the hope that some day, after he had honestly achieved, he might be privileged to tell her what his feelings were toward her.

"If you are not altogether an idiot," answered Jim bluntly, "you will tell her the very next time you meet her. Does the la.s.sie know that you were jailed for something you didn't do?"

"No,--I--I didn't tell her that. But she is aware that we met some time in the past:--that there is some kind of secret between Brenchfield and me."

"Are you going to have that two-faced hypocrite arrested?" asked Jim.

"No, siree!"

"And why not, pray?"

Phil gave Jim all his reasons "why not," and, despite Jim's cajolings and threatenings, he remained obdurate on the point.

"Well," exclaimed Langford at last, "you're positively the _sentimentalest_ a.s.s I ever met. But maybe after all you are right.

Brenchfield has had this thing eating at his liver like a cancer for six years now and the longer it eats the worse he'll suffer. He is on the down-grade right now, or else I am sadly mistaken. He is up to the ears in it with the worst crooks in the Valley:--cattle rustlers, warehouse looters, horse thieves, jail birds, bootleggers and half-breeds. Some of these fellows some day are going to get sore with him. Oh, you may be sure his sins are going to find him out;--and the higher he goes the farther he will have to fall.

"It certainly will be one h.e.l.l of a crash when it comes, and Jimmy Langford hopes to be there with bells on at the funeral of Mayor Brenchfield and his hoggish ambitions."

Phil crumpled up the paper in his palm.

"Here!" cried Jim. "What are you doing that for?"

Phil smiled a little sadly.

"I suppose you will be putting it in the stove next?"