Branded. Lynde Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ be tried at the present term of court. There need be nothing humiliating or embarrassing for you here in Glendale. Sam Jorkins will take you over to Jefferson on the midnight train, and you needn't see any of the home-town folks unless you want to."

      Remembering the clammy handshakings of the forenoon, I thought I should never again want to see anybody that I knew. And thus I made the second of the miserable blunders which led to all that followed.

      "Let it be that way," I said. "If Jorkins will go with me up to Mrs. Thompson's so that I can get a few things and pack a grip——"

      "Oh, of course," said Whitredge, readily enough. "I'll have a carriage to take you to the train, and it can drive around by your boarding-house. But you mustn't try to run away. I suppose you wouldn't do anything like that, would you?—even if you had a good chance?"

      I turned upon him as quick as a flash.

      "Do you mean that you're trying to give me a hint that I'd better run away?" I demanded.

      He took a step toward the cell door and I had a fleeting impression that he was listening to determine whether or not there was any one in the corridor. When he faced me again he was frowning reprovingly.

      "I am a member of the bar in good standing," he reminded me stiffly. "If you knew the first letter of the legal alphabet you'd know that I couldn't advise a client to run away."

      "Damn the legal alphabet!" I broke out hotly. "You're a man, Cy Whitredge; and I'm another man and in trouble. Can't you drop the professional cant for half a minute and talk straight?"

      At this he shook his head again.

      "It would prejudice your case mighty badly—that is, if you should try it and not succeed. On the other hand—but no; I won't say another word. Your best friend wouldn't advise you to make such a break. Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it. I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing like that sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is all foolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll take your medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, for the present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you, don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two, and we'll thresh it out some more."

      After Runnels had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but to wait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing that Whitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mind that freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth—in the universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture a future in some far distant corner of the country where I might begin all over again and make good. Other men had done it. Every once in a while I had read in the newspapers the story of some fellow who had eluded his fate, deserved or otherwise, years before and had lived and builded anew and in a fashion to win the applause of all men.

      Because I had lived in a small town the better part of my life, I had the mistaken notion that the world is very wide and that there must be no end of safe hiding-places for the man who needs to seek one. From that to imagining the possible details was only a series of steps, each one carrying me a little nearer to the brink of decision. As I have said, I had money of my own in the bank vault; much more than enough to bribe easy-going Sam Jorkins, the constable who, as Whitredge had said, was to take me to Jefferson. I weighed and measured all the chances and hazards, and there were only two for which I could not provide in advance. There was a possibility that Geddis might be staying late in the bank; and if he were not, there was the other possibility that he might have changed the combination on the vault lock since my arrest.

      The more I thought about it, the more fiercely the escape notion gripped me. Whitredge's talk had made it perfectly plain that the best I could hope for in a court trial would be a light sentence. As train-time drew near, the obsession pushed reason and all the scruples aside. If I could only persuade Jorkins to let me go to the bank on the drive to the station——

      The town clock in the tower of the new city hall was striking eleven when good old John Runnels and the constable came for me. At the final moment I was telling myself feverishly that it would be of no use for me to try to bribe honest Sam Jorkins; that this was the fatal weakness in my plan of escape. Hence, I could have shouted for joy when Runnels unlocked the cell door and turned me over, not to Jorkins, but to a stranger; a hard-faced man roughly dressed, and with the scar of a knife slash across his right cheek.

      "This is Bill Simmons, a deputy from Jefferson, Bertie; come to take you over to the county ja—to the sheriff's office," said Runnels. "I've told him he ain't goin' to have no use for them handcuffs he's brought along."

      "That may be," growled the sheriff's messenger. "All the same, I ain't takin' no chances—not me!" and with that he whipped the manacles from his pocket. But Runnels intervened quickly.

      "Nary!—not here in my shop, you don't, Simmons," he said. "For two cents I'd go along with Bertie, myself, if only to see to it that he gets a fair show. You treat him right and white, or I'll fire you out, warrant or no warrant!"

      When we reached the street I said I wanted to go around by way of my boarding-house for a change of clothing.

      "That's all been 'tended to," said the surly deputy, with a jerk of his thumb toward a suitcase in the seat beside the driver of the hack carriage. "You get in and keep quiet; that's all you've got to do."

      After this he said nothing and made no further move until we were jouncing along on our way to the railroad station. Then, without warning, he turned upon me suddenly and tried to snap the hand-cuffs on my wrists.

      It was all I was waiting for; something to pull the trigger. In a flash the savage, which, in the best of us, lies but skin-deep under the veneer of habit and the civilized conventions, leaped alive. There was a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage—fierce but silent—and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was more than a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat I choked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol and hand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminal in fact had been overpassed.

      "One yip out of you, and you get a bullet out of your own gun!" I warned him; and then I got speech with the driver, a squat, thickset Irishman, whose face and brogue were both strange to me.

      "Drive to the Farmers' Bank—side door—and be quick about it!" I called to him over the lowered window-sash.

      "I'm hired to go to the train. Who's payin' me for the side-trip?" he queried impatiently.

      "I am," I snapped; adding: "There's money in it for you if you put the whip on."

      He obeyed the order with what might have seemed suspicious readiness, if I had been cool enough to consider it, and a minute or two later the hack ground its wheels against the curb at the side door of the bank building. With the pistol at his ribs I pushed the deputy out ahead of me. My keys were still in my pocket—Runnels hadn't searched me for anything—and I opened the door and entered, driving Simmons a step in advance.

      The bank was untenanted, as I knew it would be if Geddis should not be there, since we had never employed a night watchman. At that time of night there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnight silence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's desk crashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made the deputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination. The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial.

      Again pushing Simmons ahead of me, I entered the СКАЧАТЬ