Kitabı oku: «Red Men and White», sayfa 4
“He’ll be gutted by night,” remarked Mr. Adams.
“I ain’t buryin’ him, then,” said Ephraim.
“Nor I,” said Specimen Jones. “Well, it’s time I was getting to Tucson.”
He went to the saloon, strapped on his pistol, saddled, and rode away. Ephraim and Mr. Adams returned to the cabin; and here is the final conclusion they came to after three hours of discussion as to who took the chain and who had it just then:
Ephraim. Jones, he hadn’t no cash.
Mr. Adams. The kid, he hadn’t no sense.
Ephraim. The kid, he lent the cash to Jones.
Mr. Adams. Jones, he goes off with his chain.
Both. What damn fools everybody is, anyway!
And they went to dinner. But Mr. Adams did not mention his relations with Jones’s pistol. Let it be said, in extenuation of that performance, that Mr. Adams supposed Jones was going to Tucson, where he said he was going, and where a job and a salary were awaiting him. In Tucson an unloaded pistol in the holster of so handy a man on the drop as was Specimen would keep people civil, because they would not know, any more than the owner, that it was unloaded; and the mere possession of it would be sufficient in nine chances out of ten – though it was undoubtedly for the tenth that Mr. Adams had a sneaking hope. But Specimen Jones was not going to Tucson. A contention in his mind as to whether he would do what was good for himself, or what was good for another, had kept him sullen ever since he got up. Now it was settled, and Jones in serene humor again. Of course he had started on the Tucson road, for the benefit of Ephraim and Mr. Adams.
The tenderfoot rode along. The Arizona sun beat down upon the deadly silence, and the world was no longer of crystal, but a mesa, dull and gray and hot. The pony’s hoofs grated in the gravel, and after a time the road dived down and up among lumpy hills of stone and cactus, always nearer the fierce glaring Sierra Santa Catalina. It dipped so abruptly in and out of the shallow sudden ravines that, on coming up from one of these into sight of the country again, the tenderfoot’s heart jumped at the close apparition of another rider quickly bearing in upon him from gullies where he had been moving unseen. But it was only Specimen Jones.
“Hello!” said he, joining Cumnor. “Hot, ain’t it?”
“Where are you going?” inquired Cumnor.
“Up here a ways.” And Jones jerked his finger generally towards the Sierra, where they were heading.
“Thought you had a job in Tucson.”
“That’s what I have.”
Specimen Jones had no more to say, and they rode for a while, their ponies’ hoofs always grating in the gravel, and the milk-cans lightly clanking on the burro’s pack. The bunched blades of the yuccas bristled steel-stiff, and as far as you could see it was a gray waste of mounds and ridges sharp and blunt, up to the forbidding boundary walls of the Tortilita one way and the Santa Catalina the other. Cumnor wondered if Jones had found the chain. Jones was capable of not finding it for several weeks, or of finding it at once and saying nothing.
“You’ll excuse my meddling with your business?” the boy hazarded.
Jones looked inquiring.
“Something’s wrong with your saddle-pocket.”
Specimen saw nothing apparently wrong with it, but perceiving Cumnor was grinning, unbuckled the pouch. He looked at the boy rapidly, and looked away again, and as he rode, still in silence, he put the chain back round his neck below the flannel shirt-collar.
“Say, kid,” he remarked, after some time, “what does J stand for?”
“J? Oh, my name! Jock.”
“Well, Jock, will y’u explain to me as a friend how y’u ever come to be such a fool as to leave yer home – wherever and whatever it was – in exchange for this here God-forsaken and iniquitous hole?”
“If you’ll explain to me,” said the boy, greatly heartened, “how you come to be ridin’ in the company of a fool, instead of goin’ to your job at Tucson.”
The explanation was furnished before Specimen Jones had framed his reply. A burning freight-wagon and five dismembered human stumps lay in the road. This was what had happened to the Miguels and Serapios and the concertina. Jones and Cumnor, in their dodging and struggles to exclude all expressions of growing mutual esteem from their speech, had forgotten their journey, and a sudden bend among the rocks where the road had now brought them revealed the blood and fire staring them in the face. The plundered wagon was three parts empty; its splintered, blazing boards slid down as they burned into the fiery heap on the ground; packages of soda and groceries and medicines slid with them, bursting into chemical spots of green and crimson flame; a wheel crushed in and sank, spilling more packages that flickered and hissed; the garbage of combat and murder littered the earth, and in the air hung an odor that Cumnor knew, though he had never smelled it before. Morsels of dropped booty up among the rocks showed where the Indians had gone, and one horse remained, groaning, with an accidental arrow in his belly.
“We’ll just kill him,” said Jones; and his pistol snapped idly, and snapped again, as his eye caught a motion – a something – two hundred yards up among the bowlders on the hill. He whirled round. The enemy was behind them also. There was no retreat. “Yourn’s no good!” yelled Jones, fiercely, for Cumnor was getting out his little, foolish revolver. “Oh, what a trick to play on a man! Drop off yer horse, kid; drop, and do like me. Shootin’s no good here, even if I was loaded. They shot, and look at them now. God bless them ice-cream freezers of yourn, kid! Did y’u ever see a crazy man? If you ’ain’t, make it up as y’u go along!”
More objects moved up among the bowlders. Specimen Jones ripped off the burro’s pack, and the milk-cans rolled on the ground. The burro began grazing quietly, with now and then a step towards new patches of grass. The horses stood where their riders had left them, their reins over their heads, hanging and dragging. From two hundred yards on the hill the ambushed Apaches showed, their dark, scattered figures appearing cautiously one by one, watching with suspicion. Specimen Jones seized up one milk-can, and Cumnor obediently did the same.
“You kin dance, kid, and I kin sing, and we’ll go to it,” said Jones. He rambled in a wavering loop, and diving eccentrically at Cumnor, clashed the milk-cans together. “‘Es schallt ein Ruf wie Donnerhall,’” he bawled, beginning the song of “Die Wacht am Rhein.” “Why don’t you dance?” he shouted, sternly. The boy saw the terrible earnestness of his face, and, clashing his milk-cans in turn, he shuffled a sort of jig. The two went over the sand in loops, toe and heel; the donkey continued his quiet grazing, and the flames rose hot and yellow from the freight-wagon. And all the while the stately German hymn pealed among the rocks, and the Apaches crept down nearer the bowing, scraping men. The sun shone bright, and their bodies poured with sweat. Jones flung off his shirt; his damp, matted hair was half in ridges and half glued to his forehead, and the delicate gold chain swung and struck his broad, naked breast. The Apaches drew nearer again, their bows and arrows held uncertainly. They came down the hill, fifteen or twenty, taking a long time, and stopping every few yards. The milk-cans clashed, and Jones thought he felt the boy’s strokes weakening. “Die Wacht am Rhein” was finished, and now it was “‘Ha-ve you seen my Flora pass this way?’” “Y’u mustn’t play out, kid,” said Jones, very gently. “Indeed y’u mustn’t;” and he at once resumed his song. The silent Apaches had now reached the bottom of the hill. They stood some twenty yards away, and Cumnor had a good chance to see his first Indians. He saw them move, and the color and slim shape of their bodies, their thin arms, and their long, black hair. It went through his mind that if he had no more clothes on than that, dancing would come easier. His boots were growing heavy to lift, and his overalls seemed to wrap his sinews in wet, strangling thongs. He wondered how long he had been keeping this up. The legs of the Apaches were free, with light moccasins only half-way to the thigh, slenderly held up by strings from the waist. Cumnor envied their unencumbered steps as he saw them again walk nearer to where he was dancing. It was long since he had eaten, and he noticed a singing dulness in his brain, and became frightened at his thoughts, which were running and melting into one fixed idea. This idea was to take off his boots, and offer to trade them for a pair of moccasins. It terrified him – this endless, molten rush of thoughts; he could see them coming in different shapes from different places in his head, but they all joined immediately, and always formed the same fixed idea. He ground his teeth to master this encroaching inebriation of his will and judgment. He clashed his can more loudly to wake him to reality, which he still could recognize and appreciate. For a time he found it a good plan to listen to what Specimen Jones was singing, and tell himself the name of the song, if he knew it. At present it was “Yankee Doodle,” to which Jones was fitting words of his own. These ran, “Now I’m going to try a bluff. And mind you do what I do”; and then again, over and over. Cumnor waited for the word “bluff”; for it was hard and heavy, and fell into his thoughts, and stopped them for a moment. The dance was so long now he had forgotten about that. A numbness had been spreading through his legs, and he was glad to feel a sharp pain in the sole of his foot. It was a piece of gravel that had somehow worked its way in, and was rubbing through the skin into the flesh. “That’s good,” he said, aloud. The pebble was eating the numbness away, and Cumnor drove it hard against the raw spot, and relished the tonic of its burning friction. The Apaches had drawn into a circle. Standing at some interval apart, they entirely surrounded the arena. Shrewd, half convinced, and yet with awe, they watched the dancers, who clashed their cans slowly now in rhythm to Jones’s hoarse, parched singing. He was quite master of himself, and led the jig round the still blazing wreck of the wagon, and circled in figures of eight between the corpses of the Mexicans, clashing the milk-cans above each one. Then, knowing his strength was coming to an end, he approached an Indian whose splendid fillet and trappings denoted him of consequence; and Jones was near shouting with relief when the Indian shrank backward. Suddenly he saw Cumnor let his can drop, and without stopping to see why, he caught it up, and, slowly rattling both, approached each Indian in turn with tortuous steps. The circle that had never uttered a sound till now receded, chanting almost in a whisper some exorcising song which the man with the fillet had begun. They gathered round him, retreating always, and the strain, with its rapid muttered words, rose and fell softly among them. Jones had supposed the boy was overcome by faintness, and looked to see where he lay. But it was not faintness. Cumnor, with his boots off, came by and walked after the Indians in a trance. They saw him, and quickened their pace, often turning to be sure he was not overtaking them. He called to them unintelligibly, stumbling up the sharp hill, and pointing to the boots. Finally he sat down. They continued ascending the mountain, herding close round the man with the feathers, until the rocks and the filmy tangles screened them from sight; and like a wind that hums uncertainly in grass, their chanting died away.
The sun was half behind the western range when Jones next moved. He called, and, getting no answer, he crawled painfully to where the boy lay on the hill. Cumnor was sleeping heavily; his head was hot, and he moaned. So Jones crawled down, and fetched blankets and the canteen of water. He spread the blankets over the boy, wet a handkerchief and laid it on his forehead; then he lay down himself.
The earth was again magically smitten to crystal. Again the sharp cactus and the sand turned beautiful, and violet floated among the mountains, and rose-colored orange in the sky above them.
“Jock,” said Specimen at length.
The boy opened his eyes.
“Your foot is awful, Jock. Can y’u eat?”
“Not with my foot.”
“Ah, God bless y’u, Jock! Y’u ain’t turruble sick. But can y’u eat?”
Cumnor shook his head.
“Eatin’s what y’u need, though. Well, here.” Specimen poured a judicious mixture of whiskey and water down the boy’s throat, and wrapped the awful foot in his own flannel shirt. “They’ll fix y’u over to Grant. It’s maybe twelve miles through the cañon. It ain’t a town any more than Carlos is, but the soldiers’ll be good to us. As soon as night comes you and me must somehow git out of this.”
Somehow they did, Jones walking and leading his horse and the imperturbable little burro, and also holding Cumnor in the saddle. And when Cumnor was getting well in the military hospital at Grant, he listened to Jones recounting to all that chose to hear how useful a weapon an ice-cream freezer can be, and how if you’ll only chase Apaches in your stocking feet they are sure to run away. And then Jones and Cumnor both enlisted; and I suppose Jones’s friend is still expecting him in Tucson.
THE SERENADE AT SISKIYOU
Unskilled at murder and without training in running away, one of the two Healy boys had been caught with ease soon after their crime. What they had done may be best learned in the following extract from a certain official report:
“The stage was within five miles of its destination when it was confronted by the usual apparition of a masked man levelling a double-barrelled shot-gun at the driver, and the order to ‘Pull up, and throw out the express box.’ The driver promptly complied. Meanwhile the guard, Buck Montgomery, who occupied a seat inside, from which he caught a glimpse of what was going on, opened fire at the robber, who dropped to his knees at the first shot, but a moment later discharged both barrels of his gun at the stage. The driver dropped from his seat to the foot-board with five buckshot in his right leg near the knee, and two in his left leg; a passenger by his side also dropped with three or four buckshot in his legs. Before the guard could reload, two shots came from behind the bushes back of the exposed robber, and Buck fell to the bottom of the stage mortally wounded – shot through the back. The whole murderous sally occupied but a few seconds, and the order came to ‘Drive on.’ Officers and citizens quickly started in pursuit, and the next day one of the robbers, a well-known young man of that vicinity, son of a respectable farmer in Fresno County, was overtaken and arrested.”
Feeling had run high in the streets of Siskiyou when the prisoner was brought into town, and the wretch’s life had come near a violent end at the hands of the mob, for Buck Montgomery had many friends. But the steadier citizens preserved the peace, and the murderer was in the prison awaiting his trial by formal law. It was now some weeks since the tragedy, and Judge Campbell sat at breakfast reading his paper.
“Why, that is excellent!” he suddenly exclaimed.
“May I ask what is excellent, judge?” inquired his wife. She had a big nose.
“They’ve caught the other one, Amanda. Got him last evening in a restaurant at Woodland.” The judge read the paragraph to Mrs. Campbell, who listened severely. “And so,” he concluded, “when to-night’s train gets up, we’ll have them both safe in jail.”
Mrs. Campbell dallied over her eggs, shaking her head. Presently she sighed. But as Amanda often did this, her husband finished his own eggs and took some more. “Poor boy!” said the lady, pensively. “Only twenty-three last 12th of October. What a cruel fate!”
Now the judge supposed she referred to the murdered man. “Yes,” he said. “Vile. You’ve got him romantically young, my dear. I understood he was thirty-five.”
“I know his age perfectly, Judge Campbell. I made it my business to find out. And to think his brother might actually have been lynched!”
“I never knew that either. You seem to have found out all about the family, Amanda. What were they going to lynch the brother for?”
The ample lady folded her fat, middle-aged hands on the edge of the table, and eyed her husband with bland displeasure. “Judge Campbell!” she uttered, and her lips shut wide and firm. She would restrain herself, if possible.
“Well, my dear?”
“You ask me that. You pretend ignorance of that disgraceful scene. Who was it said to me right in the street that he disapproved of lynching? I ask you, judge, who was it right there at the jail – ”
“Oh!” said the enlightened judge.
“ – Right at the left-hand side of the door of the jail in this town of Siskiyou, who was it got that trembling boy safe inside from those yelling fiends and talked to the crowd on a barrel of number ten nails, and made those wicked men stop and go home?”
“Amanda, I believe I recognize myself.”
“I should think you did, Judge Campbell. And now they’ve caught the other one, and he’ll be up with the sheriff on to-night’s train, and I suppose they’ll lynch him now!”
“There’s not the slightest danger,” said the judge. “The town wants them to have a fair trial. It was natural that immediately after such an atrocious act – ”
“Those poor boys had never murdered anybody before in their lives,” interrupted Amanda.
“But they did murder Montgomery, you will admit.”
“Oh yes!” said Mrs. Campbell, with impatience. “I saw the hole in his back. You needn’t tell me all that again. If he’d thrown out the express box quicker they wouldn’t have hurt a hair of his head. Wells and Fargo’s messengers know that perfectly. It was his own fault. Those boys had no employment, and they only wanted money. They did not seek human blood, and you needn’t tell me they did.”
“They shed it, however, Amanda. Quite a lot of it. Stage-driver and a passenger too.”
“Yes, you keep going back to that as if they’d all been murdered instead of only one, and you don’t care about those two poor boys locked in a dungeon, and their gray-haired father down in Fresno County who never did anything wrong at all, and he sixty-one in December.”
“The county isn’t thinking of hanging the old gentleman,” said the judge.
“That will do, Judge Campbell,” said his lady, rising. “I shall say no more. Total silence for the present is best for you and best for me. Much best. I will leave you to think of your speech, which was by no means silver. Not even life with you for twenty-five years this coming 10th of July has inured me to insult. I am capable of understanding whom they think of hanging, and your speaking to me as if I did not does you little credit; for it was a mere refuge from a woman’s just accusation of heartlessness which you felt, and like a man would not acknowledge; and therefore it is that I say no more but leave you to go down the street to the Ladies’ Lyceum where I shall find companions with some spark of humanity in their bosoms and milk of human kindness for those whose hasty youth has plunged them in misery and delivered them to the hands of those who treat them as if they were stones and sticks full of nothing but monstrosity instead of breathing men like themselves to be shielded by brotherhood and hope and not dashed down by cruelty and despair.”
It had begun stately as a dome, with symmetry and punctuation, but the climax was untrammelled by a single comma. The orator swept from the room, put on her bonnet and shawl, and the judge, still sitting with his eggs, heard the front door close behind her. She was president of the Ladies’ Reform and Literary Lyceum, and she now trod thitherward through Siskiyou.
“I think Amanda will find companions there,” mused the judge. “But her notions of sympathy beat me.” The judge had a small, wise blue eye, and he liked his wife more than well. She was sincerely good, and had been very courageous in their young days of poverty. She loved their son, and she loved him. Only, when she took to talking, he turned up a mental coat-collar and waited. But if the male sex did not appreciate her powers of eloquence her sister citizens did; and Mrs. Campbell, besides presiding at the Ladies’ Reform and Literary Lyceum in Siskiyou, often addressed female meetings in Ashland, Yreka, and even as far away as Tehama and Redding. She found companions this morning.
“To think of it!” they exclaimed, at her news of the capture, for none had read the paper. They had been too busy talking of the next debate, which was upon the question, “Ought we to pray for rain?” But now they instantly forgot the wide spiritual issues raised by this inquiry, and plunged into the fascinations of crime, reciting once more to each other the details of the recent tragedy. The room hired for the Lyceum was in a second story above the apothecary and book shop – a combined enterprise in Siskiyou – and was furnished with fourteen rocking-chairs. Pictures of Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott ornamented the wall, with a photograph from an old master representing Leda and the Swan. This typified the Lyceum’s approval of Art, and had been presented by one of the husbands upon returning from a three days’ business trip to San Francisco.
“Dear! dear!” said Mrs. Parsons, after they had all shuddered anew over the shooting and the blood. “With so much suffering in the world, how fulsome seems that gay music!” She referred to the Siskiyou brass-band, which was rehearsing the march from “Fatinitza” in an adjacent room in the building. Mrs. Parsons had large, mournful eyes, a poetic vocabulary, and wanted to be president of the Lyceum herself.
“Melody has its sphere, Gertrude,” said Mrs. Campbell, in a wholesome voice. “We must not be morbid. But this I say to you, one and all: Since the men of Siskiyou refuse, it is for the women to vindicate the town’s humanity, and show some sympathy for the captive who arrives to-night.”
They all thought so too.
“I do not criticise,” continued their president, magnanimously, “nor do I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and the most sacred is Woman’s own – to console!”
“True, true!” murmured Mrs. Slocum.
“We must do something for the prisoner, to show him we do not desert him in his hour of need,” Mrs. Campbell continued.
“We’ll go and meet the train!” Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, eagerly. “I’ve never seen a real murderer.”
“A bunch of flowers for him,” said Mrs. Parsons, closing her mournful eyes. “Roses.” And she smiled faintly.
“Oh, lilies!” cried little Mrs. Day, with rapture. “Lilies would look real nice.”
“Don’t you think,” said Miss Sissons, who had not spoken before, and sat a little apart from the close-drawn clump of talkers, “that we might send the widow some flowers too, some time?” Miss Sissons was a pretty girl, with neat hair. She was engaged to the captain of Siskiyou’s baseball nine.
“The widow?” Mrs. Campbell looked vague.
“Mrs. Montgomery, I mean – the murdered man’s wife. I – I went to see if I could do anything, for she has some children; but she wouldn’t see me,” said Miss Sissons. “She said she couldn’t talk to anybody.”
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Campbell. “I dare say it was a dreadful shock to her. Yes, dear, we’ll attend to her after a while. We’ll have her with us right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may – may be – may soon meet a cruel death on the scaffold.” Mrs. Campbell evaded the phrase “may be hanged” rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical sense it had seemed to lack dignity.
“So young!” said Mrs. Day.
“And both so full of promise, to be cut off!” said Mrs. Parsons.
“Why, they can’t hang them both, I should think,” said Miss Sissons. “I thought only one killed Mr. Montgomery.”
“My dear Louise,” said Mrs. Campbell, “they can do anything they want, and they will. Shall I ever forget those ruffians who wanted to lynch the first one? They’ll be on the jury!”
The clump returned to their discussion of the flowers, and Miss Sissons presently mentioned she had some errands to do, and departed.
“Would that that girl had more soul!” said Mrs. Parsons.
“She has plenty of soul,” replied Mrs. Campbell, “but she’s under the influence of a man. Well, as I was saying, roses and lilies are too big.”
“Oh, why?” said Mrs. Day. “They would please him so.”
“He couldn’t carry them, Mrs. Day. I’ve thought it all out. He’ll be walked to the jail between strong men. We must have some small bokay to pin on his coat, for his hands will be shackled.”
“You don’t say!” cried Mrs. Slocum. “How awful! I must get to that train. I’ve never seen a man in shackles in my life.”
So violets were selected; Mrs. Campbell brought some in the afternoon from her own borders, and Mrs. Parsons furnished a large pin. She claimed also the right to affix the decoration upon the prisoner’s breast because she had suggested the idea of flowers; but the other ladies protested, and the president seemed to think that they all should draw lots. It fell to Mrs. Day.
“Now I declare!” twittered the little matron. “I do believe I’ll never dare.”
“You must say something to him,” said Amanda; “something fitting and choice.”
“Oh dear no, Mrs. Campbell. Why, I never – my gracious! Why, if I’d known I was expected – Really, I couldn’t think – I’ll let you do it!”
“We can’t hash up the ceremony that way, Mrs. Day,” said Amanda, severely. And as they all fell arguing, the whistle blew.
“There!” said Mrs. Slocum. “Now you’ve made me late, and I’ll miss the shackles and everything.”
She flew down-stairs, and immediately the town of Siskiyou saw twelve members of the Ladies’ Reform and Literary Lyceum follow her in a hasty phalanx across the square to the station. The train approached slowly up the grade, and by the time the wide smoke-stack of the locomotive was puffing its wood smoke in clouds along the platform, Amanda had marshalled her company there.
“Where’s the gals all goin’, Bill?” inquired a large citizen in boots of the ticket-agent.
“Nowheres, I guess, Abe,” the agent replied. “Leastways, they ’ain’t bought any tickets off me.”
“Maybe they’re for stealin’ a ride,” said Abe.
The mail and baggage cars had passed, and the women watched the smoking-car that drew up opposite them. Mrs. Campbell had informed her friends that the sheriff always went in the smoker; but on this occasion, for some reason, he had brought his prisoner in the Pullman sleeper at the rear, some way down the track, and Amanda’s vigilant eye suddenly caught the group, already descended and walking away. The platoon of sympathy set off, and rapidly came up with the sheriff, while Bill, Abe, the train conductor, the Pullman conductor, the engineer, and the fireman abandoned their duty, and stared, in company with the brakemen and many passengers. There was perfect silence but for the pumping of the air-brake on the engine. The sheriff, not understanding what was coming, had half drawn his pistol; but now, surrounded by universal petticoats, he pulled off his hat and grinned doubtfully. The friend with him also stood bareheaded and grinning. He was young Jim Hornbrook, the muscular betrothed of Miss Sissons. The prisoner could not remove his hat, or he would have done so. Miss Sissons, who had come to the train to meet her lover, was laughing extremely in the middle of the road.
“Take these violets,” faltered Mrs. Day, and held out the bunch, backing away slightly at the same time.
“Nonsense,” said Amanda, stepping forward and grasping the flowers. “The women of Siskiyou are with you,” she said, “as we are with all the afflicted.” Then she pinned the violets firmly to the prisoner’s flannel shirt. His face, at first amazed as the sheriff’s and Hornbrook’s, smoothed into cunning and vanity, while Hornbrook’s turned an angry red, and the sheriff stopped grinning.
“Them flowers would look better on Buck Montgomery’s grave, madam,” said the officer. “Maybe you’ll let us pass now.” They went on to the jail.
“Waal,” said Abe, on the platform, “that’s the most disgustin’ fool thing I ever did see.”
“All aboa-rd!” said the conductor, and the long train continued its way to Portland.
The platoon, well content, dispersed homeward to supper, and Jim Hornbrook walked home with his girl.
“For Lord’s sake, Louise,” he said, “who started that move?”
She told him the history of the morning.
“Well,” he said, “you tell Mrs. Campbell, with my respects, that she’s just playing with fire. A good woman like her ought to have more sense. Those men are going to have a fair trial.”
“She wouldn’t listen to me, Jim, not a bit. And, do you know, she really didn’t seem to feel sorry – except just for a minute – about that poor woman.”
“Louise, why don’t you quit her outfit?”
“Resign from the Lyceum? That’s so silly of you, Jim. We’re not all crazy there; and that,” said Miss Sissons, demurely, “is what makes a girl like me so valuable!”
“Well, I’m not stuck on having you travel with that lot.”
“They speak better English than you do, Jim dear. Don’t! in the street!”
“Sho! It’s dark now,” said Jim. “And it’s been three whole days since – ” But Miss Sissons escaped inside her gate and rang the bell. “Now see here, Louise,” he called after her, “when I say they’re playing with fire I mean it. That woman will make trouble in this town.”
“She’s not afraid,” said Miss Sissons. “Don’t you know enough about us yet to know we can’t be threatened?”
“You!” said the young man. “I wasn’t thinking of you.” And so they separated.
Mrs. Campbell sat opposite the judge at supper, and he saw at once from her complacent reticence that she had achieved some triumph against his principles. She chatted about topics of the day in terms that were ingeniously trite. Then a letter came from their son in Denver, and she forgot her rôle somewhat, and read the letter aloud to the judge, and wondered wistfully who in Denver attended to the boy’s buttons and socks; but she made no reference whatever to Siskiyou jail or those inside it. Next morning, however, it was the judge’s turn to be angry.
“Amanda,” he said, over the paper again, “you had better stick to socks, and leave criminals alone.”
