It happened like this: I was in Denver. I had been there many years;
sometimes I remember how many, sometimes I don't--but it isn't any
matter. All of a sudden I got a notice to leave, or I would be exposed
for a horrible crime committed long before--years and years before--in
the East.
I knew about that crime, but I was not the criminal; it was a cousin
of mine of the same name. What should I better do? My head was all
disordered by fear, and I didn't know. I was allowed very little
time--only one day, I think it was. I would be ruined if I was
published, and the people would lynch me, and not believe what I said.
It is always the way with lynchings: when they find out it is a mistake
they are sorry, but it is too late--the same as it was with Mr. Holmes,
you see. So I said I would sell out and get money to live on, and run
away until it blew over and I could come back with my proofs. Then I
escaped in the night and went a long way off in the mountains somewhere,
and lived disguised and had a false name.
I got more and more troubled and worried, and my troubles made me see
spirits and hear voices, and I could not think straight and clear on any
subject, but got confused and involved and had to give it up, because
my head hurt so. It got to be worse and worse; more spirits and more
voices. They were about me all the time; at first only in the night,
then in the day too. They were always whispering around my bed and
plotting against me, and it broke my sleep and kept me fagged out,
because I got no good rest.
And then came the worst. One night the whispers said, “We'll never
manage, because we can't see him, and so can't point him out to the
people.”
They sighed; then one said: “We must bring Sherlock Holmes. He can be
here in twelve days.”
They all agreed, and whispered and jibbered with joy. But my heart
broke; for I had read about that man, and knew what it would be to
have him upon my track, with his superhuman penetration and tireless
energies.
The spirits went away to fetch him, and I got up at once in the middle
of the night and fled away, carrying nothing but the hand-bag that had
my money in it--thirty thousand dollars; two-thirds of it are in the bag
there yet. It was forty days before that man caught up on my track.
I just escaped. From habit he had written his real name on a tavern
register, but had scratched it out and written “Dagget Barclay” in the
place of it. But fear gives you a watchful eye and keen, and I read the
true name through the scratches, and fled like a deer.
He has hunted me all over this world for three years and a half--the
Pacific states, Australasia, India--everywhere you can think of; then
back to Mexico and up to California again, giving me hardly any rest;
but that name on the registers always saved me, and what is left of me
is alive yet. And I am so tired! A cruel time he has given me, yet I
give you my honor I have never harmed him nor any man.
That was the end of the story, and it stirred those boys to blood-heat,
be sure of it. As for me--each word burnt a hole in me where it struck.
We voted that the old man should bunk with us, and be my guest and
Hillyer's. I shall keep my own counsel, naturally; but as soon as he is
well rested and nourished, I shall take him to Denver and rehabilitate
his fortunes.
The boys gave the old fellow the bone-mashing good-fellowship handshake
of the mines, and then scattered away to spread the news.
At dawn next morning Wells-Fargo Ferguson and Ham Sandwich called us
softly out, and said, privately,
“That news about the way that old stranger has been treated has spread
all around, and the camps are up. They are piling in from everywhere,
and are going to lynch the P'fessor. Constable Harris is in a dead funk,
and has telephoned the sheriff. Come along!”
We started on a run. The others were privileged to feel as they chose,
but in my heart's privacy I hoped the sheriff would arrive in time; for
I had small desire that Sherlock Holmes should hang for my deeds, as you
can easily believe. I had heard a good deal about the sheriff, but for
reassurance's sake I asked,
“Can he stop a mob?”
“Can he stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob! Well, I should smile!
Ex-desperado--nineteen scalps on his string. Can he! Oh, I say!”
As we tore up the gulch, distant cries and shouts and yells rose faintly
on the still air, and grew steadily in strength as we raced along. Roar
after roar burst out, stronger and stronger, nearer and nearer; and at
last, when we closed up upon the multitude massed in the open area
in front of the tavern, the crash of sound was deafening. Some brutal
roughs from Daly's gorge had Holmes in their grip, and he was the
calmest man there; a contemptuous smile played about his lips, and if
any fear of death was in his British heart, his iron personality was
master of it and no sign of it was allowed to appear.
“Come to a vote, men!” This from one of the Daly gang, Shadbelly
Higgins. “Quick! is it hang, or shoot?”
“Neither!” shouted one of his comrades. “He'll be alive again in a week;
burning's the only permanency for him.”
The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a thunder-crash of
approval, and went struggling and surging toward the prisoner, and
closed around him, shouting, “Fire! fire's the ticket!” They dragged him
to the horse-post, backed him against it, chained him to it, and piled
wood and pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face did not
blench, and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips.
“A match! fetch a match!”
Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and held it under
a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob. The cone caught, a tiny
flame flickered about it a moment or two. I seemed to catch the sound of
distant hoofs--it grew more distinct--still more and more distinct, more
and more definite, but the absorbed crowd did not appear to notice it.
The match went out. The man struck another, stooped, and again the flame
rose; this time it took hold and began to spread--here and there men
turned away their faces. The executioner stood with the charred match in
his fingers, watching his work. The hoof-beats turned a projecting crag,
and now they came thundering down upon us. Almost the next moment there
was a shout--
“The sheriff!”
And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his horse almost
on his hind feet, and said,
“Fall back, you gutter-snipes!”
He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground, and his
hand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him promptly, and said,
“Drop your hand, you parlor-desperado. Kick the fire away. Now unchain
the stranger.”
The parlor-desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech; sitting his
horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any touch of fire,
but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and in a tone
which harmonized with their character and made them impressively
disrespectful.
“You're a nice lot--now ain't you? Just about eligible to travel with
this bilk here--Shadbelly Higgins--this loud-mouthed sneak that shoots
people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there's anything I
do particularly despise, it's a lynching mob; I've never seen one that
had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one before it can
pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It's made up of cowards,
and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine times out of a
hundred the sheriff's another one.” He paused--apparently to turn that
last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of it--then he went
on: “The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him is the
lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundred and
eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year. By the
way it's going, pretty soon there 'll be a new disease in the
doctor-books--sheriff complaint.” That idea pleased him--any one could
see it. “People will say, 'Sheriff sick again?' 'Yes; got the same
old thing.' And next there 'll be a new title. People won't say, 'He's
running for sheriff of Rapaho County,' for instance; they'll say, 'He's
running for Coward of Rapaho.' Lord, the idea of a grown-up person being
afraid of a lynch mob!”
He turned an eye on the captive, and said, “Stranger, who are you, and
what have you been doing?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing anything.”
It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name made on
the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He spoke up with
feeling, and said it was a blot on the country that a man whose marvelous
exploits had filled the world with their fame and their ingenuity, and
whose histories of them had won every reader's heart by the brilliancy
and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under the Stars
and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the name of the
whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and told Constable
Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personally
responsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to the mob and
said,
“Hunt your holes, you scum!” which they did; then he said: “Follow me,
Shadbelly; I'll take care of your case myself. No--keep your pop-gun;
whenever I see the day that I'll be afraid to have you behind me with
that thing, it 'll be time for me to join last year's hundred and
eighty-two”; and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following.
When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time, we
ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-up in the
night and is gone! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him out if he
likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested.
V