(From _Harper’s Magazine_)
Within a hundred yards of the hill’s crest Walton Pringle’s pocket
flash winked spasmodically and died. He paused a moment to catch his
breath; the pull up from the creek bed had winded him and the sting of
cold rain in his face added a further discomfort. If he hadn’t dawdled
at Preston’s Flat, hoping for the rain to cease or abate, he would have
made his objective before nightfall. But since he had elected to wait
so long it would have been much better to continue there until next
morning. As it was, he felt sure that he had strayed from the trail--a
particularly unhappy thought to a man who could claim only a speaking
acquaintance with the wilderness. And this too under the pall of a
stormy night without the slightest ray of light to guide him. Well, the
best he could do was to stumble on: it was far better to keep moving in
circles than to resign himself to inactivity and chills.
He was glad now that he had been persuaded to take a pistol when he
came away from Walden’s Glen. If he were lost, at least he could
provide himself with game, and in the mountains one could never tell
how long one might wander aimlessly along false paths once the proper
trail was abandoned. At first this pistol business had seemed absurd:
California was no longer a bandit country, and even if it were he had
nothing worth stealing. A jack-knife, a pocket-flash, two bars of
chocolate, and a sheaf of notes on “Itinerant and Rural Labor and Its
Relation to Crime” were poor pickings for a hold-up man. His notes
especially were valueless to any one save himself, and even their loss
would not have been irreparable. He was still near enough to his
investigations to have the material for his book clearly fixed in his
mind and, once back at his desk in San Francisco, he would be able to
recall every detail of the last two weeks spent among the economic
nomads of the mountains. But in spite of all these obvious guarantees
against violence, it appeared that there _were_ reasons for being
forearmed.... It was Lem Thatcher, one of the oldtimers, who had put
him straight on this point.
“Bandits be damned!” Thatcher had exclaimed. “But how about a stray
bobcat? Or a crazy man? Or a lost trail?... A man who goes into the
open with nuthin’ but a jack-knife and a couple o’ bars o’ chocolate
is a fool.... Give a man a gun and you give him the next thing to a
pardner.”
Under the depression of the moment he felt that his original stupidity
lay not so much in failing to realize the needs of such a trip as in
essaying the venture at all. Why hadn’t he been sensible and taken
the stage as far as Rock Point and swung on from there to Marchel
Duplin’s cabin? He had no time to waste, and had there been no other
reason this alternative would have given him several additional hours
with a man who, everybody conceded, knew more about sheep herding than
any other within a hundred miles. He had talked to a Basque shepherd
near Compton’s and to a Mexican herder just the other side of Willow
Creek, attempting to get sidelights on their profession, but they had
been taciturn and he without the proper moisture for limbering their
tongues. Duplin, everybody conceded, was exceptionally garrulous for
a sheep herder even when he had not the help of thin wine. It seemed
expedient, then, to go to Duplin if he wished properly to complete
the picture of rural economy whose drawing he contemplated. But for
an untrained mountaineer--a tenderfoot, in fact--it was nothing save
a whimsical extravagance to plunge along a fifteen-mile trail through
forest and shifting granite when an easier course was open. Being
valley bred he hadn’t expected rain in August, but if he had stopped to
think he might have known that anything was climatically possible in
the mountains.
Stumbling, crawling, cursing, somehow in spite of the blackness
he felt himself making progress uphill. Presently his feet touched
level ground. This in itself was reassuring. He raised his eyes in a
desperate effort to pierce the gloom, took a few steps forward--and
suddenly, miraculously, found himself in a clearing from which beckoned
the friendly light of a cabin. With a smothered exclamation of joy he
quickened his gait, almost running forward, and the next instant he had
gained the window, instinctively stopping to peer within.
The unreality of the scene which met his eye gave Walton Pringle a
feeling that he was either dreaming or gazing down on a stage set for a
play; only sleep or the theater seemed capable of a picture so filled
with melodrama. But in the theater one was never at once spectator
and participant, and in sleep one did not have the tangible physical
discomfort which he felt. He drew his rain-soaked body closer against
the cabin, raising himself on his toes so that he might get a better
view of the interior. A man stood hovering over a table lighted by
an anæmic candle, and through his fingers dripped a slow trickle of
silver. In a corner, uncannily outlined by a steady gleam of light,
was a crucifix nailed to the wall and below it lay a couch piled with
disordered bed clothing. On the floor, midway between table and couch,
was sprawled the figure of a man--arms flung wide, his black-bearded
face upturned--a startling inanimate thing that made Walton Pringle
turn away with a shudder. The man at the table undoubtedly was a thief.
Was he also a murderer?
For the second time that night Pringle was glad that he was provided
with a pistol, and yet in spite of his preparedness he had a momentary
misgiving, an indecision: to be secured against an unavoidable
contingency was one thing; to push deliberately into trouble was quite
another. Pringle was no coward, but he knew his limitations; he was not
trained in any superlative skill with firearms. Was it discreet, then,
to thrust oneself across the path of a desperate man?
He continued to gaze through the window with morbid fascination and
uncertainty: the picture was too revealing--violence had been done,
that was obvious; plunder was in process of accomplishment. A sudden
disgust at his weak-kneed prudence stiffened his decision. At that
moment the wind, flinging itself through the pine trees, sent a shower
of twigs upon the cabin roof. The face at the table was lifted with a
tragic sense of insecurity and fear; Pringle saw that it was the face
of a young man, almost a boy. For a brief moment their eyes met; then
without further ado Pringle crept swiftly to the door, hurling his
body against it in anticipation of barred progress. The force of the
impact carried him well into the room. The youth was on his feet and an
exclamation halted on his thin, pallid lips. Pringle whipped out his
gun.
Walton Pringle did not utter a word; he merely gazed questioningly at
the youth, who began to whine.
“I didn’t do nuthin’, honest I didn’t.... I hope to die if----”
Pringle cut him short with an imperious gesture. The lad’s manner as
well as his physique was filled with a shambling, retarded maturity.
His face was curiously pale for one from a rural environment, and his
hair that should have been vivid and red had been sunburnt to a vague
straw color.
“Hand over your gun!” Pringle demanded.
The youth straightened himself with a flicker of confidence. “I ain’t
got none!” he threw back.
Pringle searched him: he had told the truth. “Come then, give me a hand
here!” he commanded, laying his own weapon on the table.
Together they lifted the inert body from the floor and placed it on the
couch.
“He’s dead!” the youth ventured.
Pringle put his hand to the man’s heart. “So it seems,” he returned
dryly.
The dead man was swarthy and beetle browed, with wiry blue-black hair
and beard. He was undressed save for a suit of thick woolen underwear
and his feet were encased in heavy knitted gray socks. An ugly gash
clotted his brow and the ooze of blood trickling thickly from the wound
was staining the bedclothes. A flash of intuition lighted up Pringle’s
mental gropings.
“Is this Marchel Duplin’s cabin?”
The youth stared, then nodded.
“And is this Marchel Duplin?”
“Yes.”
Almost with the same movement Pringle and the youth turned away, the
lad dropping into a chair before the table.
Pringle drew a bench from the wall and straddled it. “What’s your
name?” he demanded.
“Sam--Sam Allen.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Down--down by Walden’s Glen.”
“Ah!... And what are you doing here?”
“Gettin’ out o’ the wet, mostly.”
Pringle pointed to the heap of coins on the table. “And making a
little clean-up on the side, eh?... Well, what have you got to say for
yourself?”
Sam Allen dropped his ineffectual blue eyes. “Nuthin’ much ... I come
here to get outa the rain, like I said before. He was layin’ on the
bed there, mutterin’ to hisself, and burning up with fever. I went up
to him and I says, ‘Marchel, don’t yer know me?’ With that he grabs me
by the throat. I never _did_ see anybody get such a stranglehold on a
man.... I jest couldn’t pry him loose. He went down like a chunk o’
lead. And when his head struck the ground”--Sam Allen shuddered--“It
was jest like a rotten watermelon went squash.... I didn’t dare look
fer a minute, and when I did he was dead!”
“And then you proceeded to rob him, eh? Without even waiting to lift
his dead body from the floor ... or seeing what you could do to help
him?”
Sam Allen shook his head. “I know when a man’s dead ... and I don’t
like to touch ’em, somehow--that is--not all by myself. It was
different when you come. Besides, I’ve heerd tell that the law likes
things left in a case like this--that it’s better not to touch nuthin’.”
Pringle could not forego a sneer; really, the youth was too
ineffectual! “Nothing except money, I suppose!”
Sam Allen ignored the sarcasm; it is doubtful if it really made
an impression. “It musta got kicked out from under his pillow in
the scuffle.... Anyway, I seen it layin’ there on the floor, jest
where his head struck, almost. Of course I was curious.” He turned a
childishly eager face toward Pringle. “Do you know, he had nigh onto
fifty dollars in that there bag.”
“Indeed!”
But again Pringle’s sarcasm rebounded and fell flat. Apparently Sam
Allen was not quick witted. He mistook irony for interest. Without
further urging the youth began to tell about himself. His father had a
hog ranch just this side of Walden’s Glen--a drab, filthy spot. This
father kept drunk most of the time on a potent brand of moonshine
which he himself distilled. The whole drudgery of the place had fallen
on the boy. “Cows, I wouldn’t have minded so much--they ain’t dirty
like pigs--leastways what they eat ain’t!” He breathed hard when he
spoke and his clipped words took on descriptive vehemence. The whole
atmosphere of the Allen ranch rose in a fetid mist before Walton
Pringle: hog wallow, sour swill, obscene grunts and squealings, the
beastly drunkenness of Allen senior. Since no mention was made of
a woman’s presence, Pringle divined that there was none. Sam Allen
had grown sick to death of it all and had run away: without money,
provisions, or proper clothing--even lacking decent footgear--without
plans. It was a pitiful story and yet it damned him superlatively;
gave point to the situation in which he had been found. Listening to
him Pringle lost the conviction that he was a premeditated murderer,
but there seemed no reasonable doubt that he was an accidental one. It
seemed he knew well the Duplin cabin; used to steal up there on rare
occasions, when Marchel was out shepherding, to share the Frenchman’s
dribbles of thin wine. He liked wine. One mouthful and your heart felt
freer, more gay. Why, one could sing then--almost. At least Marchel
Duplin could. Moonshine never gave a man a singing mood--only a nasty
one. At this point Pringle could not forego a question: Did he know
that Duplin had money?... Allen hesitated and Pringle had an impulse
to warn him against answering; it didn’t seem fair to let the boy
unwittingly incriminate himself. But before Pringle could caution him
the youth blurted out the truth: he had heard something of it. Pringle
felt his heart contract in a rush of pity: the whole situation was so
obvious--a desperate, weak, perhaps degenerate boy rushing blindly
toward freedom and disaster. Had Duplin’s wine jug been part of the
youth’s hapless plan? Had he attempted to get the shepherd drunk before
he despoiled him?
At all events he hadn’t managed skillfully and the Frenchman had put
up a fight. The results spoke for themselves. Well, it all came back
to heredity and environment. He’d have an interesting lot of notes to
make on this case. No theorizing this time, but something at first
hand, alive and palpitating. Quite suddenly he found his pity receding,
submerged by his scientific desire for truth. The youth before him was
like a moth pinned to the wall, before which the investigator lost
all sentimental interest in his eagerness to measure the duration
of the death agony. Now was the time to get data, before fear or
caution stepped in to dam up Sam Allen’s naïve garrulity. Pringle was
interested in the youth’s mother. But Sam Allen couldn’t remember much:
Lizzie Evans, that had been her name--a girl who “worked out.” Yet the
very economy of this picture was illuminating. Lizzie Evans, a girl who
“worked out.” It was perfect! A girl who doubtless had been ruined,
to use the phrase of unemancipated women. She probably had had just
such a pinched, yellow, wistful face as the son she had borne to feed
the hangman’s noose. Pringle had a fad for reconstructing the faces of
mothers from the bolder outlines of their male offspring. He usually
found the test successful even with the most rugged material; he had a
feeling that in this case his imagination did not need to overleap any
confines whatsoever to achieve its goal. Lizzie Allen, born Evans, had
died: a futile, weak anæmic slip of a girl, stifled by the nauseous
vapors of the hog pens. Not that Sam Allen put it so, but Pringle could
read a shorthand of life almost as skillfully as a complete script. He
swung the conversation back to Allen senior. The son embellished the
portrait with a wealth of sinister details, finishing with a malicious
little chuckle.
“An’ he’s deputy sheriff for the district, too, moonshinin’ an’ all....
Oh, I’ve seen him track fellars down an’ shoot ’em when they had the
goods on him. Didn’t matter whether they was guilty or not.... I’ve
seen him beat ’em, too--over the head--with the butt of a pistol--or
anything else that came handy!”
Pringle turned his eyes to the inanimate figure on the bed. How
completely everything was dovetailing! “_I’ve seen him beat ’em, too,
over the head._” Precisely. For all the youth’s inadequacy he had
absorbed some of the inhumanities from his sire.
* * * * *
A strange exalted cruelty began to stir in Walton Pringle, the cruelty
of an animal on the scene of some furtive thing pitifully intent on
escape. His mood must have communicated itself, for suddenly Sam Allen
fell into a silence that no amount of prodding could shatter. Well,
there could be little more that bore upon the particular issue. Pringle
began to think of the most expedient move. He found himself shivering.
Naturally, since he had been wet to the skin.... A rusty stove huddled
itself just below one of the windows, sending its pipe crazily through
a shattered pane. Pringle suggested a fire; dumbly the youth assented.
Together they began to collect débris from the cabin floor: crumpled
newspapers, empty cartons, a handful of pine cones. Soon a cheerful
blaze crackled and roared. Even Sam Allen found its warmth agreeable,
but its cheer did not serve to melt his sudden reticence.
Presently for lack of fuel the fire began to spend itself and its snap
and roar sank to a faint hiss. The night too seemed to have grown
miraculously silent. Pringle rose and threw open the cabin door. The
rain had stopped, even the wind had fallen, and through a rent in the
storm clouds far to the east a faint glow gave promise of a rising moon.
Pringle closed the door and went back to his place before the stove.
The situation in which he found himself made him suddenly restive. It
seemed as if he could not possibly wait until morning to settle the
issue that must ultimately be settled.
Walden’s Glen lay a good fifteen miles to the east, but at least it
was for the most part down grade. His exhaustion of the previous hour
had been swallowed up in the absorbing shock of drama. He felt like
making a decisive move and yet a certain pity for Sam Allen, shrinking
visibly before his questioning gaze, made him resolve to give the youth
a meager choice in the matter. He sauntered casually to the table. The
candle was guttering to a feeble decline, and it threw out a flickering
light that touched with spasmodic fire the coins lying in a disorderly
heap where Sam Allen had abandoned them. Pringle ran his hand nervously
through the silver pile.
“What do you think,” he asked abruptly, “shall we strike out for
Walden’s Glen now, or wait till morning?”
Sam Allen gave a gasp. Then recovering himself, he returned with slow
drawling defiance, “If you’re headed that way, suit yourself.... But I
set out to leave Walden’s Glen and I don’t see no reason why I should
go back.”
Pringle felt himself grow ominously cool. “I dare say you don’t.
But, unfortunately for you, there _are_ reasons.... In a way I’m
sorry I walked into this mess. But I did walk in and I can’t shirk my
responsibility. There’s the law to reckon with, you know!”
Sam Allen’s lips began to tremble. “I tell you it was an accident.
Don’t you believe me?”
“No.”
“And you mean to give me up--to--to--my father?”
_Deputy sheriff for the district!_ For a moment even Pringle trembled:
the picture which the youth had drawn of his sire had been too vivid.
And besides, the bare situation was pregnant with disaster.
“I’m afraid there’s no help for it,” Pringle returned, trying to check
any show of emotion. Sam Allen crept nearer to the table like a whipped
dog. Pringle was stirred to a profound pity. “Besides,” he went on more
softly, “your father can’t really touch you. You’ll have all the law on
your side.”
Even in his terror the youth could not check a sneer. “Much you know
about it!” he cried passionately.
“But I’ll go with you--don’t you understand--every step of the way ...
I mean, I’ll stand by you till everything’s put straight.” Pringle
broke off suddenly. Sam Allen’s white face seemed to draw closer to the
table and his two eyes were fixed craftily upon the gun which Pringle
had neglected to restore to his hip pocket.
An intense nervous silence followed; Pringle made a swift movement
toward the pistol, and the next moment the candle was violently
extinguished.
* * * * *
Pringle stood momentarily inactive under the shock of surprise. The
slam of the door roused him. He went stumbling through the gloom,
knocking down impediments in his path until he gained the open. The
moon was still hidden by the thick clouds in the east, but directly
overhead a few stars showed dimly through thin vapors rising from the
drenched hills.
Almost at once he realized the futility of pursuit. He knew nothing
about the country, and besides, the greatest service he could render
was to report the situation promptly. An aroused community would deal
effectively with the murderer--he wouldn’t get very far with his lack
of resources and wit.
Pringle went back into the cabin and lighted the candle, forcing the
stub out of the candlestick to prolong its life. The pile of silver had
been scattered about by the impact of stumbling fingers but it appeared
otherwise intact; the pistol, however, had disappeared. Pringle laughed
to himself, shrugging his shoulders. It was plain that he had much to
learn about the custody of prisoners. Urged by the expediency of taking
stock of all emphatic details connected with the situation, he raised
the candle and swept the interior with its faint radiance. This was the
first comprehensive view he had taken of the room. But there was really
little of fresh significance: the cot on which lay the body of Marchel
Duplin, the rusting stove, the table, the one chair, the bench; and
over in a corner--back of the door when it swung open--a burlap curtain
screening a shallow triangle. This last item was the only detail which
had previously escaped him, partly because of its neutral color and
partly because it hung in the shadow. A faint suspicion crossed him as
he caught the movement of the curtain. He put the light down on the
table. Could it be that the slammed door following on Allen’s apparent
exit had been a clever ruse? He took a quick gliding step forward
and thrust the curtain dramatically aside, almost expecting to find
Sam Allen cowering behind it. But the space revealed nothing except
a muddle of clothes and discarded boots, and a sharp current of air
drifting through a wide crevice in the floor.
The reaction from the tenseness of expectation left him shivering. An
impatience for the whole situation swept over him. He felt relieved
that young Allen had fled, eluded him. It lifted an unpleasant duty
from his shoulders and at the same time confirmed the youth’s guilt. He
would have hated, now that he considered it, to be the instrument for
turning an uncertain situation into an inevitable one. His testimony
might have damned an innocent man--that he was now willing to concede.
But Allen’s escape immeasurably cleared the issue: innocent people were
never fearful. How many, _many_ times, in divers forms, had this truism
been brought home to him!
Yet in spite of the emphatic case against young Allen, Pringle felt
the necessity of having his own movements clear in his mind. He’d be
questioned, naturally; that went without saying. Quite rapidly he
recapitulated the events of the day: the start from Walden’s Glen at
sunrise, the untoward rain at noon, his dawdling in the shelter of a
redwood hollow against a sudden clearing; his resolve to push on when
he saw no prospect of the storm’s abatement.... It all sounded so clear
and simple. Once he explained his mission, any testimony he might
give must gather added weight. And his credentials would render his
testimony doubly valuable. His book on _Radical Movements in Relation
to Post-war Problems_ would carry him past any reasonable skepticism,
and then a B.A. from Yale and the prospects of a Ph.D. from Columbia
ought to impress even a rural magistrate.
He decided to count the money and take it with him to Walden’s Glen.
It wasn’t safe to leave it in the cabin, and besides, it had a
significant bearing on the case. In a half hour, he figured, the moon
would be fully risen and if the sky continued to clear he would have a
brilliantly lighted path to travel back.
He drew the single chair up to the table and fell to his task. The
money was in all denominations of silver, but mostly quarters and
halves. He began to group them into systematic piles. A faint scraping
sound made him pause.... A twig, probably, brushing against the
house.... He continued counting the money. Again the sound came. This
time a tremor ran through him as he stopped his task. He kept his
eye straight ahead as if fearing to turn to the right or left. Then
slowly, fearfully, with the inevitability of one who feels other eyes
fixed ironically upon him, he turned and looked up at the window, very
much as Sam Allen had done less than an hour before.... A man’s face
answered his startled gaze and the next instant the door flew open.
Walton Pringle rose in his seat, again repeating the gesture of Sam
Allen in a like situation. A faint, almost imperceptible sense of this
analogy crept over him; he felt his heart suddenly contract.
* * * * *
The man in the doorway had an impressive bulk, a swaggering, insolent
grossness that must once have been robustly virile. His coarse underlip
had sufficient force to crowd upward a ragged mustache, and as he
stepped heavily into the circle of light, Walton Pringle felt a glint
of sardonic and unpropitiable humor leap at him from two piglike eyes.
“Where’s Duplin?” the stranger demanded.
Pringle pointed to the cot. The visitor strode up to it and drew down
the quilt. “Dead, eh!” He bent over closer. “Ah, a tolerable blow on
the head.... Neat job, I’d say.” He flung back the quilt over the face
of the corpse with a gesture that showed an absolute indifference, a
contempt even for the presence of death. “Well, stranger, suppose you
tell me who you are?” There was an authority in his drawling suaveness
which brought a quick answer. “Pringle, eh?... And just what are you
doing here?”
Pringle stiffened with a rallied dignity. “I might ask you the same
question. And I might ask your name, too, if I felt at all curious. As
a matter of fact, I’m not, but I must decline to be cross-examined by a
man I don’t know.”
A grim humor played about the protruding under-lip. “Correct, stranger,
correct as hell! My name happens to be Allen--Hank Allen. That don’t
mean nuthin’ to yer, does it? Well, I’ll go further. I’m deputy sheriff
for this county and I’ve got a right to question any man I take a
notion to question. It ain’t exactly a right I work overtime, but when
I come into a man’s cabin and find that man dead and a stranger pawin’
over his money, I guess I just naturally calc’late that I’d better get
on the job.” He threw a pair of handcuffs on the table. “Why I happen
to be here don’t matter much, I guess. A man sometimes goes hunting for
jack rabbit and brings home venison. You get me, don’t yer?”
Walton Pringle stood motionless, trying to still the beating of his
heart. He understood something now of Sam Allen’s terror, Sam Allen’s
fear of being turned over to his father. But he knew also that a
betrayal of fear would be one of the worst moves he could make.
“You don’t have to tell me why you’re here,” he said quietly, “now that
I know your name. There’s a runaway lad mixed up in it somewhere, if
I’m not mistaken.”
The barest possible flash of surprise lighted up the features of Hank
Allen, destroying for a moment their brutal immobility. “I ain’t saying
‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that,” he half laughed, recovering his careless
manner. “But I don’t figger how that answers the question at hand.”
Pringle smiled a superior smile. “Perhaps you’re not the only one
to look through the window at a stranger sitting before this table
_pawin’_ over a dead man’s money. Perhaps I wasn’t the first in the
field. Perhaps there is more than you fancy to connect up a runaway lad
with the question at hand. Who knows?”
Hank Allen’s shoulders drooped forward with almost impalpable menace
and his brows drew down tightly. “Look here, Pringle, I ain’t
accustomed to movin’ in circles. When I shoot, I shoot straight. What’s
more, I usually set the pace. In other words, let’s have no more
riddles. Good plain language suits me. What’s on your mind?”
Pringle shrugged his shoulders with a hint of triumph and proceeded to
tell his adversary just what was on his mind in good plain language
that he felt would suit Hank Allen down to the ground. But as he
progressed he found an uneasiness halting the glibness with which he
had opened fire: Hank Allen’s impassivity became as inscrutable and
sinister as a tragic mask whose inflexible outlines concealed a surface
animate with fly-blown depravity. He finished upon a note of pity for
the youth and rested his case with a tremulousness of spirit which
disclosed that he was pleading his cause rather than Sam Allen’s; and
pleading, as Sam Allen himself had done, to a tribunal that had already
reached its verdict.
“I’m not saying the boy meant to do it, mind you,” he repeated, stung
to a reiteration by Allen’s ominous silence. “And I’m right here to do
all I can to pull him out of a hole. _My_ testimony ought to have some
weight.”
Allen ignored Pringle’s egotistic flourish. “Let’s see,” he mused
coldly, “what time did you strike out from Walden’s Glen?”
“At seven this morning.”
“And it took you until nearly nine at night to make this cabin?...
You’re a mighty slow walker, if you ask me.”
“The rain came on shortly after one o’clock. I thought it might let up,
so I dodged into the shelter of a redwood stump near Preston’s Flat.
But it only grew worse. At five I decided to push on.”
Suddenly Pringle stopped, chilled by the fact that Hank Allen’s air of
sneering incredulity was rendering devoid of substance the simplest and
most truthful statements. Even in his own ears they rang out falsely.
He desperately recovered himself and again took up his defense. It was
terrifying how hollow even his credentials sounded, let alone the story
of the day’s events: a Yale B.A., a Ph.D. from Columbia, the author of
_Radical Movements in Relation to Post-war Problems_--every statement
he made grew more incredible, more fictitious, more hopeless. It was as
if the monumental skepticism of Hank Allen were capable of destroying
all reality. When he had finished, Hank Allen cleared his throat
significantly.
“You’ll have a mighty interesting story to tell the judge,” he
half-sneered, half-chuckled.
The brevity of Hank Allen’s comment was packed with presage, and yet
for a fleeting moment Walton Pringle took courage. A judge--precisely!
A judge would be quite a different matter. Really, the situation
was little short of absurd! In answer Hank Allen merely turned his
gaze toward the disheveled cot, and he continued to tap the table
significantly with the empty handcuffs.
* * * * *
In the portentous silence which followed Walton Pringle’s thoughts
leaped to Sam Allen. Had his own skepticism of the previous hour
also flattened the youth’s defense? If he had listened with an open
mind would the boy’s far-fetched statements have held germs of
reasonability? After all, what was there so extravagant in Sam Allen’s
tale? It could have happened just as he had said. But there was the
youth’s absurd escape. What point did any man have in damning himself
with any move so suspicious--so futile?
As for Allen senior, what did he really think? It was almost incredible
to imagine that he fancied Walton Pringle guilty. Then why the pose?
Did some smoldering clan spirit in him rouse instinctively to his own
flesh and blood in its extremity? Or would his son’s disgrace expose
his own delinquencies? The story that Pringle had listened to must
merely have scratched the surface of his father’s infamies. No, it was
patent that Allen senior was in no position to invite the law to review
his private record.... Yet he must know that he could but postpone the
inevitable. What would happen tomorrow when the proper magistrate heard
the real truth? The thought, spinning through Walton Pringle’s brain,
gave him a sudden feeling of boldness. After all, what had _he_ to
fear? He rose in his seat, all his confidence recaptured.
“Mr. Allen,” he said clearly, “you are quite right. I _have_ an
interesting story to tell the judge. Therefore, I think the sooner I
tell it the better. Shall we start back to Walden’s Glen at once?”
A sardonic smile fastened itself on Pringle. He picked up the
handcuffs. “If you will oblige me--” he nodded toward Pringle’s folded
arms.
The faint suggestion of a chill crept over Pringle. “Do I understand,
Mr. Allen, that you intend to put me to the indignity of handcuffs?”
Allen shrugged. “No, I won’t have it! I’ll be damned if I will!”
“You won’t have it? Come now, that ain’t pretty talk. And it ain’t
reasonable talk, neither.” He narrowed his eyes. “Resisting an officer
of the law is sometimes a messy job, stranger.”
Pringle’s resistance died before the covert snarl in Allen’s voice.
He put out his wrists and in the next instant he felt a cold clasp of
steel encircling them and heard the click of the lock. At the moment he
remembered the words of Sam Allen: “_I’ve seen him beat ’em, too, over
the head, with the butt end of a pistol--or anything else that came
handy._”
And in a swift, terrible moment of revelation he knew that that was
just what Hank Allen intended to do.
* * * * *
He fell back on the bench utterly helpless and without defense. Every
story of the law’s brutality that had ever reached his ears seemed
to beat mockingly about him. He remembered now that not one of these
tales had ever concerned an unshackled victim. No, what petty tyrants
liked best was something prostrate which they could kick and trample
with impunity. That was always the normal complement of bullying,
but in this case corruption gave the hand of authority an added
incentive. Hank Allen would murder him not only for the pleasure of the
performance but to save his own hide. A man struck down for resisting
an officer would tell no tales. And how neatly the situation would
be cleared up: a suspected murderer paying the penalty of his crime
without process or expense of law. A bit of sound judicial economy, to
tell the truth, in a community not given to rating life too dearly. And
he thought that he had managed it all so cleverly!
At this point he noticed that Hank Allen was intent on investigating
a menacing six-shooter and his mind moved alertly past all the futile
movements he could make toward defense. Where was Hank Allen planning
his latest atrocity--here in Marchel Duplin’s cabin or somewhere on
the trail to Walden’s Glen? Here in the cabin--or he missed his
guess--with a litter of broken furniture to add confirmation to a tale
of resistance.
His gaze swept the room with a sudden hunger for even a drab background
to life, as if his soul longed to carry a homely memory with it
into the impending darkness. He saw the tumbled cot, the rusting
stove, the table before him with a sudden passionate sense of their
rude symbolism. Even the guttering candle, almost spent, took on
significance. It was the candle, blown into untimely darkness, that
had paved the way for his predicament. If only his pocket flash had
worked! Upon such trivialities did life itself depend! A flickering
candle ... a flickering candle ... a flickering-- The rhythmic beat of
this reiteration snapped. Unconsciously he had looked past the gleam of
light to the closed door and the burlap curtain, screening its shallow
triangle, swaying gently in the half darkness. Abruptly candlelight,
doorway, and curtain became fused into a unit--startling and lucid.
Would it be possible? The prospect left him as breathless as a dash of
cold water; he could hear himself gasp. Hank Allen fixed him with a
suspicious glance.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded brutally.
Pringle’s mind cleared to a point of supreme intuition.
“I’m--I’m ill!” he gasped. “Would--would you mind opening the
door--it’s suffocating in here.”
Hank Allen hesitated, then a diabolic humor seemed to move him to
compliance. He threw back the door with a chuckle and resumed his seat.
It was as if he had said, “Try it, my friend, if it amuses you!”
For a brief moment Walton Pringle closed his eyes; then quite suddenly
opened them, took in a deep breath, and with a quick upward leap he
blew out the candle.
* * * * *
Drawing himself flatly against the wall, Pringle felt the impact
of the door swinging back before Allen’s stumbling pursuit. It was
inconceivable that a man on such good terms with subterfuge could have
been tricked by anything so obvious as a slammed door. But how long
would he remain tricked? He wouldn’t search the hills all night, nor
would he be likely to strike out for Walden’s Glen without returning
to the cabin. Pringle’s first elation at the extraordinary success of
his ruse fell before the realization of his plight. What chance had a
handcuffed man in any case? And his attempt to escape--how beautifully
that colored his guilt! _Innocent people were never fearful._ The
memory of this mental deduction bit at him sharply. Yet with all
the odds against him he felt that he must plan something and that
quickly. Cautiously moving back the open door he peered over its rim.
At first his vision could not pierce the gloom, but suddenly a flood
of moonlight released from the imprisonment of dispersing clouds made
a path of silver into the cabin. Pringle listened: everything was
extraordinarily still.
All at once the silence was cracked by a keen report. A snapping
fusillade answered Pringle’s mental interrogation.... He heard a
shrill cry, clipped and terrible. Then the silence fell again....
Presently the soft beat of cautious footfalls drifted toward the cabin.
Pringle withdrew to the curtain’s shelter. Something fluttered on the
threshold. Then slowly, warily, the door was closed.
Pringle leaned sidewise, the tail of one eye thrust past the curtain’s
edge. Moonlight was flooding now even through the grimy windowpane. A
shadowy form crept stealthily toward the table, halted as if sensing a
living presence, turned sharply and revealed the unmistakable outlines
of Sam Allen’s ineffectual face.
Walton Pringle gave a cry of mingled relief and surprise and stepped
from his hiding place.
The youth shrank back. “I--I wondered where you were,” he gasped. He
gave a little hysterical flourish with his right hand and Pringle saw
that he held the stolen pistol. “Well, I’m a murderer _now_!” he spit
out with quivering venom.
In a flash Pringle knew everything, and yet he could only stammer out
in stupid conventional protest:
“You don’t mean ... _not your father_!”
The youth’s face grew ashen. “Who else did you think?” He gave a
scraping laugh. “Would _you_ stand up and let him get you, if you had a
chance to shoot first? I guess not.... Well, what are you going to do
about it?”
Pringle brought his shackled wrists into the moonlight. “Damned little,
I fancy.”
Young Allen put an incredulous finger on the handcuffs. “What’s the
idea?”
Pringle smiled ironically. “Just a little joke of your father’s.
He pretended he thought I was the murderer. He was for taking me
back to Walden’s Glen.” He stopped, overcome with a passion for
self-accusation, self-abasement: “Just as I wanted to take you back....
Yes, on the surface he was as self-righteous and smug as I was. But he
didn’t fool me. I knew that he intended to murder me in cold blood--to
save your hide and incidentally his.... Well, I blew out the candle as
you did--to--to save myself.”
A curious look came over Sam Allen’s face. Walton Pringle had a feeling
that for the second time that night he had delivered himself into the
hands of the enemy.
“You were a fool to tell me that,” Sam Allen drawled, with a hint of
his father’s biting irony in his voice. “I wouldn’t have thought of
such an easy way out--all by myself.... Yer know what I mean, don’t
yer?”
Pringle felt himself grow unnaturally calm. “You mean you could shoot
me down and settle everything for yourself?... Yes, you could. Dead
men tell no tales, and in this case three dead men would be even more
silent than two.... I can’t say that I blame you. I didn’t give any
quarter in your pinch; why should you spare me?”
Sam Allen gave an impatient cough and his words vibrated with sudden
and strange maturity as he said coldly:
“I’m trying to figure it out.... It _would_ be simpler to kill you.”
He held up the pistol, gazing at it with the tragic fascination of a
stripling who has tasted his first victory--drawn his first blood.
His whole body seemed animated with some strange new power that still
struggled for foothold. Was the spirit of Hank Allen so soon fighting
for a place in which to lodge its sinister corruption?... Suddenly
he began to shiver violently. “No, it wouldn’t be simpler,” he half
whispered--“not in the long run.... What do you say? Shall we go back
to Walden’s Glen--together?”
A faint blur dimmed Pringle’s gaze. “I don’t deserve it!” he cried with
a vehement passion. “Upon my word, I don’t!”
Sam Allen laid the pistol on the table. “Shucks!” he said simply,
“everybody makes mistakes.”
And at that moment Walton Pringle fancied that the pinched, yellow,
wistful face before him re-created with a curiously poignant glory the
face of Lizzie Allen, born Evans--the girl who had “worked out”!