THE BOY WHO FOUND CHRISTMAS & THE MAN WHO FORGOT CHRISTMAS. Max Brand

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      III. WHITE VS. YELLOW

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      Somehow that incomplete sentence tied the tongue of the sneak thief even when he saw Jack Chapel take up the box with the gold coin and drop it in the snow beside the guards. There went close to ten thousand dollars perhaps. Yet Lou Alp merely writhed in silence. He dared not speak.

      Lou was lifted in the strong arms of Jack Chapel and placed in the rear of the buckboard. Looking over the side, he saw Chapel search the two guards for weapons, and then in amazement he saw him cut the bonds of his enemies. Such faulty procedure took the breath of Lou Alp. Still he attempted no advice, and even flattened himself on the bottom of the buckboard.

      He felt quite sure that up to this point his presence had not been noted. He had not issued from his hiding place until after both guards had been stunned by the blows of Jack Chapel and, as they lay face downward in the snow, there was small reason to think that they had heard his voice over the screaming of the storm, or that they had seen him during the very brief interim before he was placed in the bed of the wagon. He lay still and said nothing while the two struggled to their feet and went with uncertain steps down the road. The circling, thick eddies of the snow covered them from view quickly. Jack climbed up to his place in the driver's seat. He turned and looked down to Lou Alp, bedded in feed sacks with his injured leg cocked up to break the jar of the bumps. As he turned, Lou saw Chapel's right hand laid on the rail of the seat, with the knuckles scraped bare and bleeding. The blows which knocked down the guards had done that work, he knew, and he felt once more that surprise, tinged with fear, with which he had already discovered so many unsuspected accomplishments in his companion. He knew enough about boxing to recognize the snapping, straight-armed power of the blows which had stunned the guards. He felt again that there was more to Jack Chapel than appeared on the surface. The man was hiding something.

      "Are you going to be all right, there?" asked Jack.

      His voice was cold, and Alp winced under it. "I can stand it, pal," he said conciliatingly.

      He watched to see the face of the other soften, but with a curt nod Chapel turned and started the horses on. He swung the wagon about and sent it along the valley with the storm at their backs. They made good time up the road, jogging steadily on for the better part of three or four hours. Before the end of that time Lou Alp had squirmed into a dozen positions and was finding ease in none. How fervently he blessed the moment when the buckboard was brought to a halt. Chapel climbed down from the seat and stood over his companion.

      "We've come to the end of the road," he said.

      "This wilderness? Where in the name of heaven can we put up? Jack, I can't stand much more!"

      "Look over there."

      Lou strained his feverish eyes and made out the vague form of a house ghost-like in the storm, a big house of which he saw more the longer he stared.

      "But how'll I get there?" he groaned. "Must be half a mile, Jack."

      "I'll get you there."

      Something of restraint in his voice made Lou wince again. He broached the vital question. "Will... will you be safe there?" he asked. "Suppose the posse turns along this road?"

      "I dunno," replied the other. He turned as he spoke and looked into the teeth of the storm as though danger were at that moment riding upon him out of it. "I dunno. But I've got to get you to that house before you get a cold in your wound."

      Lou could see his friend hesitating, and that hesitation drove him into a panic. Would he be abandoned here in the snow on the meager chance that someone from the house should happen on him, or that he could drag himself to the shelter? He was on the verge of breaking into a frantic appeal when he checked himself and thought of new tactics.

      "Jack," he said, "listen to me. I've done you no good. First to last you've started everything and finished everything all by yourself. You got me out of jail. You brought me West. You planned the job down the road. You pulled it off. And all I've done is to clog up the works and gum the cards." He paused a little to study the effect of his words. It was hard to read Jack Chapel with the wind turning up his hat behind and the snow spattering on his shoulders. He seemed so self-reliant and self-possessed that again the shivering took Lou Alp. Yet he persisted in his singular appeal.

      "Leave me be where I am, Jack," he went on, his voice shaking. "If you come up there to the house with me, they'll have you sure. Before ten hours somebody'll come along this way and the folks at the house'll tell 'em that you been there to leave me."

      The larger man grunted. "What'll you do without me?" he asked harshly. "You don't know these folks around here. You don't know their ways. You ain't like 'em and they'll see the difference. They'll start askin' questions and you'll be fool enough to start tellin' 'em lies. Inside of five days they'll have the sheriff out here to look you over as a queer one."

      The sneak thief looked into his wretched soul and shook in acknowledgment of the truth. "Let them come and get me," he said hoarsely. "Let 'em come. But if they get me, I'll have this one satisfaction, that I didn't drag you into it. Jack, pal, you take the horses and go on. I'll take my own chances."

      Through a heart-breaking pause he saw the other hesitate, and even turn partly away; but at the very moment, when a wild and craven appeal was about to break from the lips of Lou Alp, Chapel turned again and caught the meager hand of the thief.

      "I thought you were bluffin' me," he said with emotion. "I thought you were yellow and were just bluffin' me. But now I see you're straight, partner, and I'll tell you where I stand. Back there when you were peeved and wanted me to bump off those two gents, I figured that you meant it, and it sort of riled me a little. Speakin' man to man, I thought you were a skunk, Lou. Been thinkin' so all this time right up to now. But a gent that plays square once, can't play crooked the next minute. Here you lie, helpless, but not thinkin' once about yourself."

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