DAVID JENISON'S STORY
David's first week with the show was a trying one. In the first place,
he was kept so carefully under cover, literally as well as
figuratively, that he seldom saw the light of day except at dawn or
through the space between sidewall and top. At night he rode over
rough, muddy roads in the tableau wagon, stiff and sore from the
violent exercise of the day,--for he was training in earnest to become
a clown. He was learning the clown's songs, and singing with the chorus
in such pieces as "I'll never Kiss my Love again behind the Kitchen
Door," "Paddle your own Canoe," and others in Joey's repertory.
Throughout the forlorn, disquieting days he stayed close to the
dressing-tent, always in dread of the moment when Blake or some other
minion of the law would clap him on the shoulder and end the agony of
suspense. Blake, as a matter of fact, more than once came near to
finding his quarry. Twice, at least, David was smuggled out of sight
just in time to avoid an encounter with his stubborn pursuer.
At last, after five days, Blake gave it up and turned back to Virginia,
hastened somewhat by the cleverly exploited newspaper strategy of
George Simms, the show's press agent. Simms managed it so that a press
dispatch came out of Richmond in which it was said on excellent
authority that the boy had been seen in the neighborhood of his old
home within the week, and that posses were now engaged in a
neighborhood hunt for him. Blake was fooled by it.
After it became definitely known to Simms that Blake was back in
Richmond with his assistant, David was permitted to emerge gradually
from his seclusion. The first thing he did was to go with Joey Grinaldi
to a savings bank where, under the name of John Snipe, he deposited two
thousand dollars, retaining five hundred for emergencies. Part of this
he turned over to the clown, part to Ruby and the rest to the trusty
contortionist. Twice during the week Braddock bullied him into giving
up twenty-five dollars to "fix it" with town officials. At least once a
day he was importuned to deliver the "leather" into the safe keeping of
the proprietor, who solemnly promised that it would be returned.
Moreover, in drunken magnanimity, he guaranteed to pay three per cent
interest while the money was in his ticket-wagon safe, sealed and
inviolate if needs be. On the subtle advice of Joey Noakes David did
not tell Braddock that he had deposited the money; it would have been
like the "boss" to fly into a rage and deliver him up to the
authorities.
Braddock drank hard during the days following the departure of Colonel
Grand, who stayed with the show no longer than twenty-four hours--an
unusually brief visit, according to Joey.
The rainy weather continued and business got worse and worse. There was
an air of downright gloom about the circus. Men, women and children
were in the "dumps," a most unnatural condition to exist among these
whilom, light-hearted adventurers. When they lifted up their heads, it
was to deliver continuous anathemas to the leaden skies; when they
allowed them to droop, it was to curse the soggy earth.
The new clown saw but little of Mrs. Braddock and Christine. Braddock's
failure to extract money from him made that worthy so disagreeable that
his wife and daughter were in mortal terror of his threats to turn the
boy adrift if he caught them "coddling" him.
David's close associates were the Noakeses, the contortionist and two
or three rather engaging acrobats. As for the women of the company, he
had but little to do with them, except in the most perfunctory way. He
was always polite, gallant and agreeable, and they made much over him
when the opportunity presented itself. They were warm-hearted and
demonstrative, sometimes to such an exaggerated degree that he was
embarrassed. He was some time in getting accustomed to their effusive
friendliness; it dawned on him at last that they were not graceless,
flippant creatures, but big-hearted, honest women, in whom tradition
had planted the value of virtue. He was not long in forming an
unqualified respect for them; it was not necessary for Joey Grinaldi to
tell him over and over again that they were good women.
If Christine saw him while she was in the ring, David was never able to
determine the fact for himself. He tried to catch her eye a hundred
times a day; he looked for a single smile that he might have claimed
for his own. Once he caught her in his arms when she stumbled after
leaping from the horse at the end of her act. It was very gracefully
done on his part. She whispered "Thank you," but did not smile, and
therein he was exalted. There was no day in which he failed to perform
some simple act of gallantry for her and Mrs. Braddock, always with an
unobtrusive modesty that pleased them. Sometimes he left spring flowers
for them; on other occasions he bought sweetmeats and pastry in the
towns and smuggled them into their hands, not without a conscious glow
of embarrassment and guilt. He was ever ready to seize upon the
slightest excuse to be of service to them, despite the fact that they
resolutely held aloof from him. The entire company of performers
understood the situation and cultivated a rather malicious delight in
abetting his clandestine courtesies.
It was no other than the queen of equestrians, Mademoiselle Denise (in
reality an Irish woman with three children who attended school and a
husband who never had attended one, although he was an exceptionally
brilliant man when it came to head balancing)--it was Denise who, one
rainy evening, brought Christine and David together between
performances in a most satisfying manner by taking the former to visit
a fortune-teller whose home was quite a distance from the show lot,
first having sent David there on a perfectly plausible pretext. The
young people met on the sidewalk in front of the house bearing the
number Mademoiselle Denise had given to David. To say that he was
surprised at seeing Christine under the same umbrella with the older
woman would be putting it very tamely; to add that both of them were
shy and uneasy is certainly superfluous. Moreover, when I say that
David was obliged to inform Mademoiselle Denise that she had given him
the wrong number; that a hod-carrier instead of a sorceress dwelt
within,--when I say this, you may have an idea that there was no
fortune-teller in the beginning. And then, when the head-balancing
husband suddenly appeared and walked off with Denise, leaving the
embarrassed youngsters to follow at any pace they chose, you may be
quite certain that there was a conspiracy afoot.
Christine walked demurely beside David, under a rigid umbrella. They
were seven blocks from the circus lot; it was quite dark and drizzly.
For the first two blocks they had nothing to say to each other, except
to venture the information that it was raining. In the second block, a
very lonely stretch indeed, David, whose eyes had not left the backs of
the wily couple ahead, regained his composure and with it his natural
gallantry.
"Perhaps you had better take my arm, Miss--Miss Christine," he said
stiffly.
She took it, rather awkwardly perhaps but very resolutely.
"I thought I heard something in the bushes back there," she said in
extenuation.
"It was the wind," he vouchsafed, but his thoughts went at once to
Blake. Involuntarily he looked over his shoulder and quickened his
pace. She felt his arm stiffen.
"I'm quite sure it was a cow," she said.
"Are you afraid of cows?"
"Dreadfully."
"And you're not afraid of elephants or camels?"
"Oh, dear, no; they're tame." She seemed in doubt as to the wisdom of
expressing aloud the thoughts that troubled her. Twice she peered up
into the face of her companion. Then she resolutely delivered herself.
"I _do_ hope father won't see us, David."
"You poor girl," he cried gently. "I'm sorry if this gets you into
trouble. Denise didn't tell me. She--"
"Oh, Denise did it on purpose," she said, quite glibly. "I suppose she
thinks we're going to fall in love with each other."
David was grateful to the darkness. It hid his blush of confusion.
"But that's perfectly silly," went on the soft voice at his elbow. "I
just want to be your friend, David. My mother adores you. So do I, but
in just the same way that she does. I--I couldn't think of being so
ridiculous as to fall in love with you."
He resented this. "I don't see why you say that," he said, rather
stiffly. "But," very hastily, "I'm not asking you to do it. Please
don't misunderstand me. I--"
"Mother and I are so sorry for you, David," she went on earnestly.
"We--we don't believe a word of--of--well, you know." She was suddenly
distressed.
"How do you know that I'm not guilty?" he cried bitterly. "You have
only my word for it. Of course, I'd deny it. Anybody would, even if he
was as guilty as sin. I--I might have done it, for all you know."
"Oh, don't--don't talk like that, David!"
"Nearly every one with the show thinks I did it. It doesn't matter to
them, either. They like me just as well. It's--it's as if I were a
friendless, homeless dog. They're tender-hearted. They'd do as much for
the dog, every time. I like them for it. I'll not forget everybody's
kindness to me and--and their indifference."
"Indifference, David?"
"Yes. That's the word. It doesn't make any difference what I am, they
just say it's all right and--and--that's all."
She caught the intensely bitter note in his voice. Christine was young,
but she had fine perceptions. Her lip trembled.
"_Nobody_ thinks you did it," she cried in a vehement undertone. "Even
father--" She stopped abruptly, a quick catch of compunction in her
breath.
"If he thinks I'm innocent, why is he so set on keeping me from talking
to you or your mother?" he demanded quickly, a sudden fire entering his
brain. "That doesn't look as if he thinks I'm all right, does it?
I'm--I'm not a low-down person. If I was, I could see a reason. But I'm
a gentleman. Every man in my family has been a gentleman since--oh,
you'll think I'm boasting. I didn't mean to say this to you. It sounds
snobbish. No, Christine, your father thinks I'm guilty."
"He does not!" she whispered. "I know he doesn't. I've heard him argue
with mother about you. He has told her that he does not believe that
you killed your grandfather. I've heard him say it, David. He--he is
only thinking of--must I say it? Of the disgrace to us if you should be
caught and it came out we were your friends. That's it. He's thinking
of us, David. It is so foolish of him. We both have told him so.
But--but you don't know my father." There was a world of meaning in
that declaration--and it was not disrespectful, either.
David was discreetly silent. He was quelling the rage that always rose
in his heart when he thought of Thomas Braddock's attitude, not only
toward him but toward his wife.
"I wish he wouldn't look at it in that way, David," she resumed
plaintively. "We--we would be so happy if you could be with us,--that
is, more than you are." She was stammering, but not from embarrassment.
It was in the fear of saying something that might touch his sensitive
pride.
"I--I love your mother," he cried intensely. "She's the best woman I've
ever known--except my own mother. She's better than my aunts--yes, she
is! Better than all of them. I could die for her."
She clutched his arm tightly but said nothing. The words could not
break through the sobs that were in her throat. Neither spoke for a
matter of a hundred feet or more. Then he said to her, rather drearily:
"Did you read what the papers said about the--the murder, and about me?"
"No. Mother will not let me read the things about crime. But," she said
quickly, "she has told me all about it since you came."
"They made me out to be a vicious degenerate and an ingrate," he said.
"Oh, it was horrible,--the things they said about me. Just as if they
knew I was guilty. But, Christine, I am going to make them take it all
back. I'm going to make them apologize some day, see if I don't." The
fierce agony in his voice moved her greatly.
"Oh, if I could help you!" she cried tremulously.
He apparently did not hear the eager words.
"It all looked so black against me," he went on, looking straight ahead
unseeingly. "Perhaps I shouldn't blame them. I have thought it all out,
lots of times, Christine, and I've tried to put myself in their place.
Sometimes I think that if I were not myself I should certainly believe
myself guilty. It _did_ point to me, every bit of it, Christine. And I
am as innocent as a little baby. If--if they catch me they'll hang me!"
"No, no!" she shuddered.
"Doesn't it look to you as if I really had done it?" he demanded. "Tell
the truth, Christine. From what you have heard, wouldn't you say it
_looked_ as if I were guilty?"
She hesitated, frightened, distressed. "The papers did not tell the
truth, David," she said loyally.
"They hunted for me with bloodhounds," he went on vaguely. "If they had
caught me then, I would have been strung up and shot to pieces. You
see," turning to her with a gentle note in his voice, "my grandfather
was very much beloved. He was the very finest man in all the state. I
have sworn to avenge his death. I swear it every night--every night,
Christine. First, I'm going to clear myself of the--the hideous thing.
And then!" There was a world of promise in those two words.
"You have said that there is a man who can clear you," she ventured.
"Who is he, David? Where is he to be found? Why doesn't he step forward
and clear you?"
"I--I don't know where he is. In New York, I think. He--he was sent out
of the country by--by some one. Do you want to hear my side, Christine?"
"Do you--care to speak of it, David?"
"Yes. You will understand. You are good. I want you to tell your
mother, too." He slackened his pace. Both forgot that the hour for the
"tournament" was drawing perilously near. "I lived with my grandfather,
Colonel Jenison. My father was killed at Shiloh. My mother died when I
was nine years old. I had one uncle, my father's younger brother. He
was an officer in the Southern army, just as my father was. He gave my
grandfather trouble all of his life. They say it was his wild habits
that drove my grandmother to her grave. I knew him but slightly. When
the war was two years old, he was court-martialed for treason to the
cause. The story was that he had been caught trying to sell some plans
to the enemy. He was sentenced to be shot. It was very clear against
him, my mother told me on one of the rare occasions when his name was
mentioned. But he escaped during a sudden, overwhelming attack by the
Yanks. They never caught him. My grandfather, who had been a colonel in
the war with Mexico and had lost an arm, disowned him as a son. He
disinherited him, leaving everything to my father. When my father was
killed I became the heir to Jenison Hall and all that went with it,--a
vast estate.
"A year ago my uncle Frank turned up. He came to Richmond with proof
that cleared him of the charge of treason in the minds of his old
comrades. Three men on their deathbeds had signed affidavits, showing
that they were guilty of the very thing of which he was accused, he
being an innocent dupe in the transaction. I don't know just how it all
came about, but he was exonerated completely. With this to back him up,
he came to the Hall to plead for my grandfather's forgiveness. He came
many times, and finally it seems that grandfather believed his story.
Uncle Frank took up his residence at the Hall. I hated him from the
beginning. He was a wicked man and always had been. I don't believe
what the affidavits said.
"Well, he soon learned that I was to be the heir. Everybody knew it. I
was at the University. Grandfather had sent me there. It was my second
year, for I had gone in very young. When I went home for the Christmas
holidays, Uncle Frank was practically running the place. Grandfather
didn't really trust him, I'm sure of that. They had a couple of violent
scenes New Year's week up in the library. It was something about money.
Grandfather told me a little about it, but not much. He said Uncle
Frank wanted him to change his will, claiming it was not fair to him,
who had been so wrongfully accused. My grandfather told me that he
would never change it. He might leave a certain amount in trust for
Uncle Frank, but Jenison Hall was not to go to any Jenison whose name
had ever been blackened.
"One day I went up to Richmond to spend the night with some college
friends. My uncle Frank was already there, on business he said. Well, I
found out what his business was--accidentally, of course. He was there
to see a nigger lawyer! Think of that, Christine. A Jenison having
dealings with a nigger lawyer. This lawyer had once been a slave on the
Jenison place, a yellow boy whose name was Isaac--Isaac Perry. When the
war broke out he went with my uncle as his body-servant. He was a
smart, thieving fellow,--always too smart to be caught, but always
under suspicion. My grandfather had given him some schooling because
Isaac's father was _his_ body-servant and he would have done anything
for old Abraham. After the war Isaac was made a lawyer, 'way down in
South Carolina. The judges were darkies, they say. Later on he went to
Richmond and did some business for the darkies there, besides
conducting a barber shop.
"Well, I happened to go into his shop the evening I reached Richmond.
He was shaving Uncle Frank. They did not observe me as I sat back along
the wall. I heard him tell Uncle Frank he would surely come to the
hotel that night to see him. Uncle Frank said it was important and
asked him to be sure and bring the papers. He left the shop without
seeing me, and Isaac had forgotten me, I reckon. I wondered what
business he and my uncle could have to discuss. That night I made it a
point to be at the hotel. I saw Uncle Frank standing out in front. When
Isaac came up he took him off down the street. I heard him say to Isaac
that the hotel was not a good place for a nigger to be seen, except as
a servant, even if he did come as a lawyer. So they went back to the
barber shop, which was closed. Isaac opened the doors and they went in.
The blinds were shut. I waited until Uncle Frank came out, an hour
later. He said to Isaac, who came no farther than the door, that he
would be up again in about ten days to see how he was 'getting on with
it.' Isaac said he'd have it fixed up 'so slick that it would fool the
old man hisself.'
"When I went back to Jenison Hall I tried to tell grandfather about all
this, but I didn't do it. I couldn't bear the thought of carrying
tales. I went back to school, but I couldn't get the thing out of my
head."
Christine interrupted him, intense almost to breathlessness.
"They--they were fixing up a new will!" she whispered, vastly excited.
He smiled wanly. "I wish I could prove that. About three weeks ago I
had a message from Uncle Frank, saying that grandfather was quite ill.
I was to come home. When I got to the Hall grandfather was much better,
and seemed annoyed because my uncle had brought me home unnecessarily.
That very night he was murdered."
"Oh!" she whispered.
"He was shot by some one who fired through the parlor window. It
happened at half-past eleven o'clock, a most unusual time for
grandfather to be about. He was fully dressed when they found him a few
minutes after the shooting. A heavy charge of buckshot had struck him
in the breast. I--I can't tell you any more about that. It was too
horrible."
"I know, I know! Poor David!"
"I was studying in my room up to a short time before the shot was
fired. The house was very still. Uncle Frank was downstairs with
granddaddy. I couldn't imagine what kept them up so long, talking.
Finally I heard Uncle Frank go upstairs to his room. Grandfather was
pacing the parlor floor; I could hear the stumping. Finally he came out
in the hall and called to me. I hurried downstairs. He was very much
agitated. 'David,' he said, 'do you remember a darky we used to have
named Isaac?' I was startled. 'Well, he has become a lawyer up in
Richmond. He has done very well, and I want you to know what I have
done for him. You are to own this place some day--soon, I fear. I have
signed a paper to-night, deeding over to Isaac the little five-acre
patch on the creek where he was born and where his father and
grandfather were born. He saw your uncle Frank in Richmond recently and
asked him if it would be possible for him to buy the ground. He wants
to put up a building to be known as the Old Negroes' Home. I have
thought it over. I did not sell it to him, David. I _gave_ it to him.
It is all quite regular and legal. The paper is in that drawer there.
You are taking the law course at the university. I want you to look
over the agreement to-night or to-morrow morning, before it is taken
over to the county seat. It is just as well that you, who are to be the
next master of Jenison Hall, should understand all that there is in it.'
"'Has Isaac Perry been here?' I asked, for I was strangely troubled.
'He has,' said granddaddy, 'he brought the document over this evening.
Isaac seems likely to make something of himself, after all.' 'I will
read it in the morning,' I said, and then I told him that I was glad
that he had given the ground. 'Your uncle Frank advised me to tell you
of it to-night,' said he.
"I went upstairs to my work, leaving him below. Soon afterwards I went
down again to get the paper, feeling that I might as well read it
before going to bed. He was reading in the back parlor. I got the
envelope out of the drawer in the front room and went back upstairs
without disturbing him. A minute afterwards I heard the shot. My own
gun was standing in the corner. I grabbed it up and crawled through a
window on to the gallery, running down the back steps. As I reached the
bottom I saw a man climbing over the fence to the right. Not dreaming
that a tragedy had occurred, I rushed after him. He easily got away in
the darkness. Then I returned to the house. As I came near I saw Isaac
Perry--unmistakably Isaac Perry--at the corner. He turned and ran the
instant he saw me. When he crossed in front of the lighted parlor
windows I distinctly saw that he did not carry a gun. The man I chased
had one. Just then a great cry came from the parlor. I rushed up to the
window to look within. One of the panes of glass had been broken.
"My grandfather was lying on the floor. Two of the servants were
standing near, looking at him as if paralyzed. There was blood on his
white shirt front. Oh! I can't tell you how it--"
He could not continue for a full minute or more. The girl was scarcely
breathing.
"I just stood there and stared, the gun in my hand. Suddenly some one
leaped upon me from behind. It was my uncle Frank and he was out of
breath, very much excited. 'You little devil!' he yelled two or three
times. Then he called for help. Servants came running from all
directions. I didn't know what he meant. Soon I was to learn."
"He--he thought you killed him?" whispered Christine.
"He _said_ I killed him. I was dazed--I was crazy. It was a long time
before I realized what was happening to me. The--the servants and the
neighbors who came in wanted to lynch me--but Judge Gainsborough, who
rode over in his night-clothes from his plantation, prevailed upon them
to wait--to give me a hearing. My uncle Frank would have let them hang
me. I began at last to realize how badly it looked for me. They laughed
at my story of the man who ran away. My uncle Frank deliberately denied
that Isaac Perry had been there. I was stupefied. It came over me
suddenly that--that Uncle Frank had done the shooting. He had killed
his own father!"
"The monster!"
"How wonderfully everything worked out against me. The gun, with one
barrel empty, for I had fired it that very day in the woods; my
presence at the window; the servants who saw me looking in; my uncle
Frank's tale of how he came out on the gallery above and saw me hiding
in the dead lilac bushes, and afterwards creep up to the window to look
in upon the thing I had done. He told of my attempt to run and of his
straggle to hold me. One of the servants had seen me go down when
granddaddy called to me, and again he had seen me go down quietly to
the library after the paper. I did go quietly, it is true, so as not to
disturb the old gentleman.
"They all rushed upstairs to search my room. Lying on my table was the
long envelope. Judge Gainsborough opened it, so he says. They came
downstairs and I shall never forget the look of horror in the Judge's
eyes as he stood there staring at me. 'David,' he said, 'this is a
terrible, terrible thing you have done.' I couldn't speak. 'How did you
know that your grandfather had made this new will?' Christine, the--the
paper was a new will, giving everything to my uncle Frank, excepting a
small bequest in money and a house and lot in Richmond, which, however,
was to go to Uncle Frank in case of my death. The will looked
genuine--everybody said so--even Judge Gainsborough. It had been drawn
three weeks before and had been witnessed by George Whitman, who died
ten days after signing, and Mortimer Simms, who, strangely enough, died
three days later."
"It was a forgery--a false will?" she cried, trembling violently in her
excitement.
"I know it was--I know it. My grandfather had told me of the deed. This
was the envelope and the paper. There was no such deed to be found.
That makes me half believe that he did sign the will, thinking it was
something else. My story about the deed was not believed. As for Isaac
Perry, my uncle said that he left for New York soon after my
grandfather's visit to Richmond, doubtless when the will was drawn and
signed. He could not have been near Jenison Hall at the time of the
shooting. Uncle Frank produced a letter from Isaac, received that very
day from New York, in which he said that he was going to Europe as the
body-servant of a New York gentleman who had helped him to secure an
education.
"They locked me in the cellar and put a guard over me until the sheriff
could come up in the morning. Christine, there wasn't a single chance
for me to prove my innocence. I knew that Uncle Frank and Isaac Perry
had arranged the whole devilish plot--how nicely they arranged it, too!
It worked out even better than they expected, for I unwittingly damned
myself. I never can tell you of my feelings when the whole thing became
clear to me. I must leave that to your imagination. I was as innocent
as a babe, and yet, in the eyes of every one, as guilty as ever any
murderer has been in this world. My only chance to escape certain
hanging lay in escape. It was after three o'clock in the morning when I
began to think of flight. I made up my mind that I could never hope for
acquittal. I thought only of getting away from them and then devoting
my whole life to finding the proof of my innocence. Isaac Perry can
prove it--or my uncle. But, my uncle will not do it--and Isaac is not
to be found. I discovered that when I reached Richmond two nights
afterwards. He had left nearly three weeks before, never to return, it
was said.
"Well, to make it short, I hit my darky guard over the head with a
chunk of stove-wood. I hated to do it, but it was the only chance. You
can't kill a nigger by hitting him on the head. Then I crawled through
a small hole in the cellar wall into the potato bins beyond. From there
I could easily get into the back yard, provided no one was watching.
They were all on the other side of the wing, discussing the murder--and
me. They said I'd surely be lynched the next night. Oh, it was awful. I
crawled out of the window hole and sneaked off toward the hen-houses,
below the old slave building. I don't know when they missed me. I only
know that I reached the woods and ran and ran till I thought I should
drop. Some other time I will tell you of all I went through during the
next week. You won't believe a lot of it, I know,--it was so dreadful.
There were a good many times when I was ready to give up, and a good
many times when they almost had me. God helped me, though. He heard my
prayers. I'll never again think there is no God, as a lot of us used to
think at the University. You don't know the agony of dread and fear in
which I'm living now. Something tells me that they will get me and that
I'll never have the chance to find Isaac Perry, to force him to tell
the truth."
"I am sure you will find him, David," she said, but her heart was very
cold.
The circus tents were just ahead of them now. The band was playing and
people were hurrying along the poorly lighted streets, sheltered by
umbrellas, all bound for the "grounds."
David's lips were rigid; his eyes saw nothing of the scene ahead, nor
were his ears conscious of the music.
"Christine, I am going to kill my uncle Frank," he said, quite calmly.
"Oh, David!"
"If I find I can't clear myself, I am going back there and shoot him
down like a dog--just as he shot his poor old fa--father." His body
shook with the racking sobs that choked him.
"You must not do that," she implored, terrified. "Then they would
surely hang you."
"Ah, but I wouldn't mind it then," he said between his teeth.
"David, you must let mother talk with you. She can tell you what to do.
Don't think of--of that, please, please don't."
He turned upon her, amazed. "Don't you think that he _ought_ to be
killed?" he demanded.
"Can't a judge order him to be hung?" she asked encouragingly.
"But they'd never be able to prove it on him. Christine, I--I wouldn't
be surprised if he has also killed Isaac Perry. I've thought of that,
too. Isaac is too dangerous to be left alive, don't you see. He drew
the will and perhaps forged granddaddy's name, and also that of George
Whitman, after Whitman's death. Maybe granddaddy really signed the
will, thinking it was the transfer. I--"
"Do you think your uncle wanted you to be hanged for something you
didn't do,--for a murder he committed himself?"
"Why not? I was in the way. If they lynched me at once, he could feel
very secure. Besides, he knew of the other will, dated years ago, which
is in the bank at Richmond. Of course, the fraudulent will takes the
place of the old one."
David did not then tell her of his stealthy return to Jenison Hall two
nights after his flight and before the funeral. On this occasion he not
only secured the envelope containing the three thousand dollars, hidden
in his mother's black leather trunk, but from a place of concealment he
was forced to hear such damning talk regarding himself that he again
stole away, fully convinced that his wild design to charge his uncle
with the crime would be absolutely suicidal.
A sharp exclamation from the girl brought him out of his last fit of
abstraction. They were quite near to the tents.
"We are late," she cried nervously. "I didn't think of the time. The
band is playing the waltz--that's the second piece before the
tournament. We must hurry. Oh, I _do_ hope father has not missed us!"
There was abject terror in her voice.
"I'm so sorry," he murmured, apprehending the outcome for her alone.
"We must make for the rear of the dressing-tent. Hurry, Christine."
They broke into a run, intending to make a wide circuit of the
main-tops. She was breathless with anxiety. He grasped her arm to help
her across the rough ground.
"If he knew, he would drive you away," she cried. She was not thinking
of herself.
Near the dressing-tent they were met by Mrs. Braddock, who had started
out to look for them.
"Hurry," she whispered. "Go in on the other side, Jack--quickly. Come
this way, Christine. Your father is coming back through the main-top.
Mr. Briggs and Professor Hanson are detaining him near the band
section--talking of a change in the music. Oh, I've been so nervous!"
"Good-by, David," whispered Christine, as she flew to the sidewall. An
instant later she disappeared, casting a quick glance up into his face
as he gallantly lifted the canvas for her to pass under.
"I'm sorry," he murmured impulsively to Mrs. Braddock as she followed.
Then he raced around the tent and bolted under the wall into the men's
section.
Joey Grinaldi simply glared at him.
In two minutes he was out of his clothes and beginning to slip into the
stripes.
"Here's Brad," hissed a friendly "Courtier," calling in through the
flap, beyond which a dozen men and women were waiting to make the
_grand entree_, or "tournament."
Braddock came in, his cigar wallowing in the throes of a vacuous but
conciliatory smile. Every one stood ready for a shocking display of
profanity.
"Jacky," he said, with amiable disregard for the novice's tardiness,
"would you mind letting me take fifty dollars until to-morrow? There's
a guy out here that threatens to attach us if I don't settle an
outrageous bill for feed and provisions. I'm just forty-eight fifty
short."
No one spoke. David did not even glance at Grinaldi or the others. He
knew and they knew that there was no such claim against Braddock. He
hesitated for an instant only. Then it was borne in upon him that
Braddock may have heard of his walk with Christine and was demanding
tribute.
He picked up his coat and deliberately drew from the lining a thin,
folded bit of paper. It contained all the money that was in his
possession at the time. He counted off five ten-dollar bills, replaced
the remaining thirty dollars inside his striped shirt, and handed the
tribute to Braddock.
"You're a damn' fine boy, Jacky," said the man. "I'll not forget this."
Later on he demonstrated the sincerity of the remark.
He came back when the show was half over, and with vast good nature
took David over to where Mrs. Braddock and Christine were standing with
wonder and doubt in their faces.
"I guess it's all right for us four to see a little more of each
other," he said, but he did not look at his wife. "Jacky, you rascal,
you _are_ a gentleman, and as such I introduce you to my family. Let's
all be friends."
Mrs. Braddock's face went white. She understood the motive of the man.
He meant to follow new methods in the effort to secure possession of
David's money.
Christine beamed with delight. She kissed her father's stubbly cheek
and called him a darling!