The Tempering Part 33

"My boy," he said shortly, "we've got to put a man in there. I don't like to ask it--but you'll have to take that challenger's place."

Boone had seen enough that morning to make him extremely reluctant to leave the Colonel's side, and he answered evasively, "I'm not a citizen of this town, Colonel."

"You don't have to be to challenge." So Boone went in. The place was foul with the stench of bad tobacco. The registration officers, who had so far had their way, were openly truculent.

"Here comes a new Sunday-school guy," sneered a clerk with a debauched face, looking up from the broad page of the enrolment book. "I wonder how long _he'll_ last."

For a time it seemed that Boone was to enjoy immunity from the heckling under which his predecessors had fallen, but the word had gone out that a "bad guy" had come in for the Fusionists who needed handling, and his apparent acceptance was nothing more than the quiet that goes before the bursting of a thunder head.

His place was inside, so he could make no move when news drifted in that one of the outside watchers had been a.s.saulted and perhaps seriously hurt, though he guessed that the car, in which he had been riding that day, would again roll up, and that perhaps Colonel Wallifarro would once more be the target of gutter insult. Indeed, he fancied he recognized the toot of that particular horn a few minutes later, but as he strained his ears to make something of the confusion outside the door burst open and a group of a dozen or so ruffians forced their way into the cramped s.p.a.ce, brandishing sticks and pistols.

"Where's this here fly guy at?" demanded the truculent leader of the invasion, and others used fouler expletives. Boone should perhaps have felt complimented that such a handsome number should have been told off to deal with his case, but as he rose to his feet he caught a glimpse over their heads of Colonel Wallifarro standing in his car outside and of confused disorder eddying about it.

Boone drew so quickly that there was no opportunity to halt him, and he fired as unhesitantly as he had drawn. With a threat unfinished on his lips the leader of the "flying squadron" crumpled to the floor, and with swift transition from bravos to fugitives his tatterdemalion gang left on the run.

Boone, with the pistol still in his hand, hurried out to the sidewalk, and at the picture which met his eyes halted on the dirty threshold.

Colonel Wallifarro still stood in the car, but on the sidewalk was General Prince, and the chivalric old gentleman was wiping blood from his face, while the dust on his clothes told clearly enough that he had been knocked down. Boone's veins were channels of liquid fire.

But that was not all. Morgan Wallifarro, still as immaculate as usual, was standing two paces away, and a burly policeman with a club raised over his head was abusing him with vicious obscenities.

So Morgan was no longer sulking in his tent! Morgan had belatedly taken his place at the Colonel's side, and as he stood there, threatened with a night-stick, Boone heard his declaration of war.

"I've never been in politics before," he declared in a voice of white-hot fury, "but I'm in now to stay until every d.a.m.ned jackal of you is whipped out of office--and whipped into the penitentiary. Now hit me with that stick--I dare you--hit me!"

Still brandishing the club above the young lawyer's head with his right hand, the patrolman shoved him roughly in the chest with his left. He was obviously seeking to force Morgan into striking at him so that, given a specious plea of self-defence, he might crack his skull.

It was then the voice of Boone sounded from the rear:

"Yes, hit him--I dare you, too!"

The officer wheeled, to see the tall and physically impressive figure of the mountain man standing the width of the sidewalk away. He held a pistol, not levelled but swinging at his side, and as if in silent testimony that it was not a mere plaything a thin wisp of smoke still eddied about its mouth and the acrid smell of burnt powder came insidiously out through the door.

Boone strolled forward.

"Mr. Wallifarro, get back in that car," he directed. "This blue-belly isn't going to trouble you."

"What the h.e.l.l have you got to do with this?" bellowed the officer, but the club came down. "You are under arrest."

"Show me your warrant."

"I don't need no warrant."

The crowd, including those who had fled from the registration room, hung back in a yapping but hesitant circle. Blackjacking non-combatants had proven keen sport, but this fellow with the revolver in a hand that seemed used to revolvers, and a gleam in the eye that seemed to relish the situation, gave them pause.

Somewhat blankly the officer reiterated his p.r.o.nunciamento. "I don't need no warrant."

"This gun says you need one," came the calm rejoinder. "You've got one yourself, and you can whistle up plenty of other harness bulls--all armed, but if you do I'll get you first. My name is Boone Wellver. Now, are you going to get that warrant or not?"

For an instant the policeman hesitated; then he conceded as though he had never contested the point.

"I ain't got no objection in the world to swearing out a warrant for you--since you've told me what your name is. But don't try to make no get-away till I come back."

"I'll be right here--when you come back."

The patrolman turned and walked away, and Boone wheeled briskly to the car.

"Now you gentlemen get out of this--and do a little warrant-swearing yourselves. Be over at Central Station in about forty-five minutes fixed to give bond for me. I reckon I'll be needing it."

Ten minutes later, with a spectacular clanging of gongs, a police patrol clattered up, scattering the crowd and disgorging a wagonload of officers headed by a lieutenant with a drawn pistol.

They handled Boone with unnecessary roughness as they nipped the handcuffs on his wrists and bundled him into the wagon, but he had expected that. It was their cheap revenge, and he gave them no satisfaction of complaint.

In the cage at Central Station into which they thrust him, with more violence, his companions were a drunken negro and one or two other "election offenders" like himself.

It was through the grating that he looked out a half hour later, to see Morgan Wallifarro standing outside.

"Father and the General are arranging bond," announced the visitor. "I wanted a word with you alone."

Boone's only response was an acquiescent nod.

"I lost my head last night, Wellver," Morgan went on shamefacedly. "I was a d.a.m.ned fool, of course, to imagine that I could bully you, and a cad as well. I lied when I intimated that you were--not anybody's equal.

If I were you, I'd refuse to accept an apology, but at all events I've got to offer it--abjectly and humbly."

There was no place in the close-netted grating of that door through which a hand could be thrust, and Boone grinned boyishly as he said, "I accept your advice and refuse to shake hands with you--Wallifarro--until the door's opened."

Boone's pistol was held, of course, as evidence, but without it he went back to the registration booth, and as he took his seat the man of the debauched face looked up, with surprised eyes, from his book; but this time he volunteered no comment.

In the police court on the following morning both Boone and his arresting officer were presented, as defendants, and the officer's case was called first on the docket. Taking the stand in his own defence, the officer glibly testified that he had struck General Prince, of whose ident.i.ty he had been unfortunately ignorant, because that gentleman had seemed to make a motion toward his hip pocket, but that he had, under much goading, refrained from striking Morgan Wallifarro.

"Why," purred the shyster who defended him, "did you so govern your temper under serious provocation?" And the unctuous reply was promptly and virtuously forthcoming: "Because police officers are ordered not to use no more force than what they have to."

General Prince smiled quietly, but Morgan fidgeted in his chair.

The police judge cleared his throat. "It appears obvious to the Court,"

he ruled, "that a man of General Prince's high character did not intend to threaten or hamper an officer in the proper performance of his sworn duty. But these gentlemen in the heat and pa.s.sion of political fervour seem to have a.s.sumed--unintentionally, perhaps--a somewhat high-handed and domineering att.i.tude. It would be manifestly unjust to exact of a mere patrolman a superior temperateness of judgment. Let the case be dismissed."

But when Boone was called to the dock, the magistrate eyed him severely not through, but over, his gla.s.ses, putting into that silent scrutiny the stern disapproval of a man looking down his nose.

"I find three charges against this defendant," he announced. "The first is shooting and wounding; the second, carrying concealed a deadly weapon, and the third, interference with an officer in the discharge of his duty."

The wounding of the flying squadron's leader was a matter for the future, since the victim of the bullet lay in a hospital, and that case had already been continued under a heavy bond. After hearing the evidence on the other accusations, the judge again cleared his throat.

"The 'pistol-toter' is a constant menace to the peace of the community, and there seems to be no doubt of guilt in the present case--but since the defendant has recently come from a section of the State which condones that offence, the Court is inclined to be lenient. The resistance to the officer was also a grave and inexcusable matter, but because of the character testimony given by General Prince and Colonel Wallifarro, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I will, on my own motion, amend these charges to disorderly conduct. Mr. Clerk, enter a fine of $19 and a bond of $1,000 for a year."

Morgan Wallifarro was, at once, on his feet.

"May it please your Honour, such a punishment is either much too severe or much too lenient. I move, your Honour, to increase the fine."