THE TURNING POINT.
Lige could hardly believe his ears when the clerk of the jewelry
establishment made this astonishing charge, eager to cover up his own
carelessness at the time the robbery was committed and to shift the
blame.
He stood there and stared, first at the flushed face of the man and then
at the tear-stained countenance of Benjy. The crowd jostled and pushed
to see and hear, but for a wonder it remained voiceless. Perhaps
surprise held the spectators spellbound; or it might be they recognized
the fact that Lige Corbley as a rule could fight his own battles.
The boy finally found his tongue, and turning toward his younger brother
he exclaimed almost tenderly:
“What does he mean by saying that, Benjy? How could you have that watch
in your pocket, when I just left you here a few minutes ago? It can’t be
so. He’s lying, to get us into trouble. It must be a set-up job! Tell
me, did you ever see that watch before he held it up right now?”
Benjy seemed to have regained his power of speech, also, for he
immediately replied to this question by saying:
“I felt somethin’ heavy in my jacket pocket, Lige,—this one it was,—and
when I put my hand in, I pulled that watch out. But I don’t know however
it came there, cross my heart if I do, Lige!”
The older boy whirled on the clerk, his eyes snapping with anger.
“There, do you hear what Benjy says, Mr. Garrison? He found your old
watch in a pocket of his jacket, but if you say he knew anything about
its being stolen or had anything to do with the thief, why, it isn’t so
and you’re telling what’s a bare-faced lie. Benjy wouldn’t take a pin
that wasn’t his own!”
He again threw a protecting arm across the shoulder of the smaller lad,
who looked up at him with a smile of confidence on his thin face that
told of hope renewed. Many times had Lige stood between the weak little
chap and trouble; and in the eyes of Benjy he was a tower of strength.
With Lige at hand, the cripple could banish fear and feel sure of
protection.
The clerk, however, was not yet ready to give up. For some reason or
other he seemed anxious to keep attention riveted in another quarter, so
as to delay the investigation as long as possible. Perhaps he found his
own conscience accusing him of lack of discretion in giving a stranger a
chance to seize upon the most valuable contents of the establishment.
“Whether the boy is guilty as a confederate or not,” he said, grimly,
with compressed lips and a baleful gleam in his pale eyes, “the stolen
goods having been found in his possession makes him a partner in the
crime, after the act. Until this thing can be looked into more closely
he ought to be held, and I call on the police to take him in charge on
suspicion!”
He beckoned to the big Chief as he said this. Lige turned white, and
then a red spot glowed in either cheek. There were low murmurs of
protest from a part of the crowd, as though this high-handed proceeding
on the part of the indiscreet clerk struck them as going much too far.
But not a hand was raised to bar the officer of the law from doing what
was demanded of him.
“Do you mean that you’re going to lock my brother up at police
headquarters just because that runaway thief chose to drop a watch in
his pocket as he was getting out of the crowd?” demanded Lige, staring
angrily at the clerk.
“That’s what ought to be done,” persisted the other stubbornly, looking
defiantly around at those gathered there. “If he’s able to prove his
innocence, no harm will be done.”
“No harm!” echoed Lige. “Mebbe you’d like to have _your_ boy arrested
for somethin’ he never done and locked up for hours in the cooler, while
they were chasin’ after the real thief? How do you think you’d feel to
have everybody pointin’ at him and saying he’d been accused of stealing
and the police had arrested him on suspicion? It’s a shame, that’s what.
Why, Benjy never stole a cent in all his life! Have me taken up if you
want to. I’ve done heaps of tough things, and everybody knows it. But
don’t you dare put it on my brother, or——”
Lige was growing more and more furious. There is no telling what sort of
dire threat he might have made toward Mr. Garrison, only that just then
he felt some one pluck him by the sleeve and heard Hugh Hardin saying:
“Hold on, Lige. Don’t finish that sentence, will you? There’s no need of
having Benjy arrested. It’s an outrage, and every one here will stand
back of me when I say that, no matter what Mr. Garrison thinks. He’s
excited now, and hardly knows what he’s doing. Besides, I want the Chief
to understand that I saw just how that watch got in Benjy’s pocket!”
A faint cheer broke from the triple circle of spectators. It could be
plainly seen that all their sympathies lay with the white-faced little
cripple. In Lige they had small confidence, but Benjy Corbley had long
been an object of more or less consideration, for it was understood that
his chances of ever living to grow up to manhood were comparatively
zero.
The clerk turned on Hugh. His manner changed more or less, because he
realized that he had a different customer to handle in the young
assistant scout master. Lige Corbley and Hugh Hardin were quite opposite
in reputation. The one was as much respected as the other was looked
upon with suspicion. Lige had been the cause of considerable excitement
in the town, and was even then considered as responsible for the outrage
at the mayor’s place of residence.
“How could you see what was done, Hugh Hardin?” Mr. Garrison asked a
little weakly, for he began to feel the ground slipping out from under
his feet.
“In this way,” returned Hugh promptly, with a quick look full of
confidence toward Lige and Benjy. “I saw the man come leaping out of the
store and push his way through the crowd. Nobody had the sense to lay a
hand on him, but perhaps that was because all of us were so surprised
that we didn’t understand what it was about until you came to the door
and called ‘Thief!’ Benjy happened to be right in his way and the man
ran full tilt against him; then, as if he chanced to see it was a
little, almost helpless cripple, he threw out both hands to keep the boy
from being knocked over. He was holding a lot of watches in one hand and
a bag in the other; and I saw with my own eyes one of the watches drop
into Benjy’s pocket,—that is, I saw it fall out of the thief’s hand, and
it must have lodged there.
“So you see, Chief, Benjy didn’t know anything about it until, as he
says, he felt something heavy in his pocket, and when he pulled that
gold watch out he just stood and stared at it till Mr. Garrison saw him.
And of course you wouldn’t want to arrest a boy who was helping to
recover the lost goods, would you, sir?”
A general laugh went up at that. The baffled clerk saw that it would be
only foolishness for him to persist in his charge after this manful
defense of Benjy.
“Oh, if that’s the case and you saw all that happened, Hugh, of course I
withdraw my charge. But as you said, I’m so flustrated by this terrible
event that I hardly know what I’m doing. So let it drop, Chief, and
please get started after the thief. He is in a buggy, and surely you
ought to overtake him with your swift auto. If the neighboring towns are
notified, he would be apprehended should he try to pass through any of
them. It is a serious business with my employer, because the best goods
in the store were taken.”
Lige gave the clerk a long, savage look, as though the incident had made
such an indelible impression on his mind that it must haunt him for many
a day.
Some of those present followed the Chief as he hurried back to police
headquarters. Others remained to listen to what was said by the clerk in
answer to the numerous sharp questions put by the shocked owner of the
establishment, who was engaged in shaking his head and walking nervously
up and down, now and then wringing his hands and declaring that he would
be ruined unless the thief were apprehended and the goods reclaimed.
Hugh and Billy were about to walk away when Lige strode sullenly up to
them. He looked straight into the eyes of the scout leader, and there
was an expression on his dark face that probably no one had ever seen
there before. Hugh understood. He realized that his simple little
defense of Benjy had done more to reach the depths of this wild boy’s
heart than anything that could possibly have happened. Had it been a
favor done toward himself, Lige would doubtless have striven to pay it
back and then wiped the remembrance of the whole occurrence from the
tablets of his mind. But he had received such a cruel shock at hearing
his little brother accused of being a thief and threatened with arrest,
that the act of Hugh in clearing him assumed a magnitude in his opinion
far beyond its real value.
“I want to say what I think of you for doing what you did, Hugh Hardin,”
he declared resolutely, his jaws set as though in grim determination.
“It was white of you, that’s right, and I’ll never forget it.”
“Oh! that’s all right, Lige,” answered Hugh pleasantly, as he thrust out
his hand toward the other impulsively. “It was a shame that Mr. Garrison
said what he did, and of course we all knew the charge was silly; but
he’s so rattled he hardly knew what he was doing. I’m glad I happened to
see that man grab hold of your brother and the watch slip out of his
fingers. I think Billy, here, must have noticed it all, too, but things
happened so fast that his breath was taken away, just as mine was for a
minute or so. Better forget all about it, Lige. No harm has been done,
you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Hugh,” replied the other boy with a sigh,
as he eagerly accepted the offered hand, “but it makes me ashamed to
think of all I’ve done to break up that scout troop of yours, and here
you keep Benjy from being arrested just as if I’d been one of your best
friends. I don’t understand it, I tell you! Why should you so much as
lift a finger to help a feller that has been so ugly all along, and
pestered you and your crowd as I’ve done? Tell me that, Hugh!”
“Why, Lige,” the assistant scout master replied, his kindly smile
holding the attention of the other boy, “I suppose it must be because we
are scouts, and we believe in doing the right thing, even when it’s an
enemy that’s in trouble. If you had ever looked up the habits of scouts,
you wouldn’t have to ask me that question. It’s given me more pleasure
to be able to lend you a helping hand than ever you could get out of it,
and that’s a fact, Lige.”
Lige shook his head, but his eyes did not fall before that steady look.
“I never knew that was what scouts believed in,” he said slowly, as an
eager, wistful glow came into his eyes. “I always thought they were only
a bunch of sissies that liked being dressed up in khaki suits and
parading around in a silly way. Then there was that time you helped put
out the fire up at my aunt’s; I seemed to begin to get my eyes opened
then, and I’ve been doing a heap of thinking ever since. Hugh, do you
think that you’d care to tell me a lot more about this scout racket if I
came around to your house some time you set? Honest, I’d like to hear
what it stands for.”
“Can you drop around at my house to-night, Lige?” asked Hugh as quick as
a flash, remembering his maxim of “striking while the iron is hot.”
“Sure I can, if you say the word. Only set the time,” Lige answered,
looking as though his mind were made up.
“Say eight o’clock then; and, Lige, I’ll have nobody there,” the scout
leader went on.
“You can look for me. Benjy, shake hands with Hugh. He was a mighty good
friend to us to-day, let me tell you, kid.”
As the Corbleys went away, Lige with that brotherly arm over Benjy’s
shoulder, Hugh turned and looked at Billy.
“It came a heap sooner than you thought it would, didn’t it, Hugh?”
demanded the stout scout, with a grin and a knowing nod. “And I guess
that settles the activities of Lige Corbley as the worst boy in town.”
Strange as it may seem, Hugh and Billy were given a chance to take part
in the chase of the man in the buggy, who had made such a clean sweep of
the jewelry establishment.
They were walking home when the big police automobile hove in sight.
Several policemen were aboard and the car was moving at a pace that
accorded with their haste.
The two scouts stepped aside to let it pass, meaning to give the men a
rousing cheer, when the chief said something to the chauffeur, and
suddenly the machine stopped alongside the chums.
“Hop in, Hugh, if you care to go along with us,” the police head called
out. “Yes, there’s room enough for you to squeeze in, too, Billy, though
you take more than your share of space. I thought that, since your
information proved valuable to us, it was only right you boys went
along. You’ll enjoy seeing how we get our man.”
“How about it, Hugh? Let’s go,” urged Billy eagerly.
“Pile in!” said Hugh without ceremony; and in another second they had
found places among the officers who occupied the tonneau of the car.
Aside from the exciting purpose of the trip, the boys knew that they
would enjoy speeding along over the country roads in the fast machine.
That would be something of a picnic in itself.
Perhaps the Chief was only showing his gratitude by offering the boys
this chance for a run, but he may have looked further. Doubtless he
remembered that these scouts had proven themselves well able to follow a
trail on an earlier occasion, and he may have foreseen a similar
emergency. The fugitive thief might abandon the buggy and take to the
depths of the woods afoot, on finding himself hotly pursued, and in that
case the boys’ services would be most welcome.
That was exactly what happened. The buggy was found, abandoned, and the
occupants of the big car, leaving one man to guard it, proceeded to
follow the thief’s trail.
From that time on, it would have been difficult to coax either one of
the two boys to turn back, so intensely interested did they become in
everything that pertained to this actual application of their tracking
game. Hugh quickly realized that the police knew next to nothing about
following a woods’ trail. Had they been alone, they would surely have
been all at sea at the point where the wily rascal had taken to running
the length of fallen tree-trunks, jumping off at the ends into thickets
of brush, or on flat rocks where there would be no trail left to betray
his course.
But all this was what Billy called “just pie” for boys who had been
drilled in the secrets of scout-craft. When they ventured to suggest to
the officers how easy it was to “blind” the trail by this sort of clever
tactics the Chief ordered them to lead off, promising to follow closely
with his men.
It was a proud day for Hugh and Billy when the police head thus showed
his confidence in their ability. They felt that they were being amply
rewarded for all the time spent in the past in gaining this knowledge of
woodcraft.
Through the woods they led the party, every now and then stopping to
make sure they were on the right track. In the end they came to an
isolated house that was said to belong to a queer old farmer, who never
had anything to do with his neighbors. A couple of savage dogs greeted
their arrival, which the police would have shot in their tracks, only
that the old man came on the scene, and chased the ugly brutes away.
When he heard what his visitors had to say, the farmer was positive that
no one could have come to his place that day; nor had any one been near
him for more than a week. But Hugh had heard the clamor, he claimed, of
the dogs a quarter of an hour before his party reached the lonely farm;
and he felt sure that the fugitive was concealed about the place right
then.
So with Billy at his side, he conducted a careful search of the ground,
and sure enough they discovered the tracks they sought, issuing from the
woods and making straight for the little tumble-down old barn.
When they made this report to the Chief, he had his men quickly surround
the place. Then he compelled the farmer to enter and make good use of
his pitchfork in tossing the hay from one side to another.
Presently a man’s boot was uncovered, seeing which, the Chief seized it
and dragged the fugitive into view. The thief struggled and tried to
break away, but was soon cowed by the sight of the significant bright
brass buttons on the Chief’s coat; though perhaps the heavy pistol that
was kept pointed at his head had something to do with his docility.
Looking further, they found the bag into which he had thrust all the
stuff taken from the store. And so, after all, the jeweler came out of
the affair luckily, although that was not the most fortunate result of
the incident.