THE SHOW-DOWN
His troubles and his trials had not wholly dulled youth's sense of the
ludicrous in Vaniman. He sat down that evening to the meal that had been
prepared by Guard Wagg, late of the state prison, for three fugitive
convicts, also late of that institution. The chimney of the kerosene
lamp was smoky and the light was dim, therefore Vaniman's grin was
hidden from his companions. Undoubtedly it would have produced no
especial wonderment in them if they had noted his cheerful visage. They
were decidedly cheerful, themselves. Mr. Wagg was no longer exhibiting
the official side of his nature; he was receiving compliments on his
biscuits. The three who had aligned themselves against Vaniman seemed
to be getting along in a very friendly fashion, being bound by a common
interest.
From biscuits in hand the conversation passed to the prison fare in
retrospect. Wagg admitted that the fare was a disgrace to the state.
From that point it was easy to go on and agree with the short man and
the tall man that the prison was mismanaged generally and that a man was
lucky in being able to get away from such a place--no matter whether
he was a guard or a prisoner. The incongruous friendliness increased
Vaniman's amusement.
He looked at the two knaves who had recently enlightened their victim in
such a matter-of-fact manner. He admitted that the comedy overbalanced
the tragedy, in view of the fact that the job had resolved itself into
petty sneak-thievery. Taking into consideration the trick money they
had found, there was considerable farce in the affair. However, Vaniman,
looking ahead to the threatening to-morrow, perceived tragedy looming
again.
Victim, criminals, guard of the criminals, they were breaking bread in a
temporary comradeship of a bizarre nature--a money quest. But that money
interest which bound them of an evening would be a disastrous problem on
the morrow, if one man attempted to stand out against three.
The one man made up his mind that there was a risky resource for him--to
flee and take his chances alone in the woods; he had decided to put his
own personal interpretation on the promise, “To-morrow!”
Right after supper he turned into his bunk, in order to simulate slumber
and avoid the questions that he could not answer.
The two new arrivals had had much to say about their weariness. He
expected that they would promptly eliminate themselves as obstacles to
flight. Mr. Wagg, at any rate, had shown a confiding disposition all
along.
But the tall man and the short man conferred _sotto voce_ and let it
be known that they had suspended payment of confidence currency for the
time being.
“The idea is,” explained the short man, “this being a pleasant party,
and all interests being common, it would be a shame to have it broken
up. Tom will sit there in the door for two hours--then he wakes me and
I sit there. We're not accusing anybody inside of wanting to leave; but
who is sure that somebody from the outside may not stroll along and want
to come in? Seeing that we went down to the pen from Levant, it may be
thought--providing they do any thinking at the state prison--that we
have come back here to start in where we left off. On the other hand,
providing they don't do any thinking, they may come up into this section
because a reasoning man never would believe we'd take chances by coming
back into an old stamping ground. Either way it's looked at, we've got
to be careful. Therefore, we hope that gents of a pleasant party will
consider this double-shift arrangement as being for the general good of
all hands.”
Mr. Wagg was pleased. He said so unhesitatingly, but not tactfully. He
declared that he would mortally hate to be surprised keeping the company
he was in.
Vaniman was able to stay awake through most of the two watches. But the
short man on sentry go was more vigilant than the tall man had been; two
hours of sleep and the keen hope for the morrow conspired to keep the
guard alert. In despair the young man loosed his hold on the hateful
verities and slipped into slumber.
He was suddenly awakened by a pinching grip on his arm. He opened his
eyes upon broad day and upon the face of the tall man. He was aware that
the short man was shaking Wagg awake in the next bunk. “Two men coming
up the side of the mountain; got a slant at 'em through the trees;
they're after us!”
“Sho!” demurred Wagg. “They're only bird hunters.”
“We're taking no chances on 'em being jailbird hunters! Are there any
holes here in the rocks?”
“Plenty,” stated Wagg. “And the three of you better hunt them holes, no
matter who is coming.”
The short man, the tall man, and Vaniman needed no urging on that point.
They ran, crouching low, and scrambled out of sight among the ledges of
the craggy peak of Devilbrow.
Wagg lighted his pipe and went out and sat on the bench beside the
camp's door, and when the two early visitors came puffing up the hill
and confronted him he was to all appearances enjoying the delights of a
bland fall morning and the comfort of an unruffled conscience. He jumped
to his feet and hailed one of the men with a great show of cordiality;
the man was one of the deputy wardens of the state prison.
Mr. Wagg hopefully and guilelessly expressed the conviction that the
officer had followed along into the wilderness in order to join in the
process of recuperation.
The deputy asserted that Mr. Wagg was wrong to the extent of a damsite,
or something of the sort, and reported some recent happenings at the
state prison, Mr. Wagg listening with appropriate, shocked, official
concern. He opined that it was a long shot, figuring that the convicts
had fled back to the region of Levant. The warden agreed. “But the
Old Man is bound to have us tip over every flat rock, Bart. He got a
call-down for that accident--and this matter on top of it has made him
sore. I'm up here this far because I got a line on you at Levant.”
“You did, hey?” Mr. Wagg gazed off across the landscape, as if wondering
how much of a trail he had left.
“You dropped 'recuperates' like a molting rooster drops feathers, Bart,”
averred the warden, jocosely. “That was my trail. Reckoned I'd come and
tip you off so that you can do a little scouting for the good cause.”
Mr. Wagg threw out his chest. “You can leave this hill section to me.
Always on the job! That's my motto.”
The deputy said he knew that, stated that he would probably spend a week
along the highways and in the villages of the section, got a drink of
water from a spring near at hand, and departed with his aide.
And after the two were far down the slope, Mr. Wagg called in his
campmates with the caution of a hen partridge assembling the brood after
the hunter has passed. “It means that we've got to stick close by this
camp and mind our business for a week, at any rate,” he said, after he
had reported the conversation.
Vaniman could not keep the complacency out of his countenance. He caught
the short man squinting at him with a peculiar expression. “It would be
mighty dangerous for any one of us to go far from this camp,” said the
young man.
“It sure would!” agreed the convict, sententiously.
Vaniman was promptly conscious that his innocent air had not been
convincing.
He became more fully aware of that fact when the tall man and the short
man resumed guard duty that night, turn about. It was plain that they
proposed to hang grimly to the token in their possession until the token
could be cashed in for the coin.
The confinement behind prison bars had tested Vaniman's powers of
endurance; this everlasting espionage by the men who had set themselves
over him tried him still more bitterly. They lacked the sanction of
the law which even an innocent man respects while he chafes. While
that situation continued he was prevented from taking any step toward
clearing up his tangled affairs. He could look down on the roofs of
the village of Egypt and meditate savagely--and that was all. Vona had
apprised him of Britt's plans regarding a mansion. He could see that
structure was taking shape rapidly. Men swarmed over it like bees over
a hive. He did not doubt the loyalty of the girl. But he was left to
wonder how long her loyalty to the memory of a dead man would endure.
Day by day, through dragging hours, he suffered from the agonizing
monotony of the camp. But the future offered only a somber prospect.
After this respite in the insistence of the treasure seekers, he could
expect only ugly determination when they dared to make a move in the
matter. They had plenty of leisure for talk. They were already spending
that money! Wagg was even more impatient than the others.
Though Vaniman had been cruelly tortured by thoughts of the injustice
that had been visited on him, by his reflections that the Egyptians
had shown him no consideration, he had nursed the hope that he might
contrive to give them back their money after he had dragged from Britt
the truth.
But at last, in his new spirit of loneliness, in the consciousness that
no man's hand was offered to him in the way of help, he entered upon a
new phase of resolution. He had gone into prison with youth's ingenuous
belief that the truth would prevail. He had permitted a lie to aid in
prying his way out, and now he was paltering with evasions and making no
progress except toward more dangerous involvement. One afternoon sudden
fury swept the props out from under caution.
He leaped up from the rock on which he had been sitting, pondering, the
rumble of the conspirators' conversation serving as obbligato for the
cry his soul was uttering. He was between them and the sunset sky.
“The truth!” he shouted.
The three men peered at him, shading their eyes. He seemed to tower with
heroic stature. He came at them, shaking his fists over his head.
“You are thieves and renegades. I don't believe you know the truth when
you hear it. But you're going to hear it.”
He tackled Wagg first. He set the grip of both of his hands into the
slack of the shoulders of the amazed guard's coat and yanked Wagg to his
feet and shouted, with his nose barely an inch from Wagg's face, “I told
you the truth at first. I said I didn't know where the money was. You
gave me a chance to get out by a lie. I'm human. I took the chance.”
He threw Wagg from him with a force that sent the man staggering; the
guard stumbled over a rock and fell on his back.
He turned on the convicts. By his set-to with Wagg he had gained their
full attention. “You low-lived scoundrels, do you know an honest man
when you lay eyes on him? I declare that I am one. Dispute me, and I'll
knock your teeth down your throats--guns or no guns. I don't know where
the money is. I never touched that money. I didn't know what was in
those sacks. If you were decent men, with any conception of an oath
before God, I'd swear to the truth of what I say. I won't lower myself
to make oath! I make the statement. And now let some of you--or all
three of you--stand up in front of me and tell me that I'm lying. Come
on! It's an open field!”
They did not stand up. Wagg merely sat up.
“Say something! Some one of you! Say something!” pleaded Vaniman through
his set teeth.
The convicts kept their sitting. Vaniman went on adjuring them to stand
up and say something. They showed no resentment when he called them
names, and they indicated no relish for battle.
“Hold on a minute!” pleaded the short man. “You seem to have your
mind well made up as to what we'd better not say. I may have to eat
state-prison grub again, and I'll need my teeth. Won't you kindly drop a
hint as to what would suit you in the line of talk?”
“You can tell me whether you think I'm handing you the truth or not.”
“I think you are,” agreed Bill, readily.
“So do I,” asserted Tom.
“How about you, Wagg?” Vaniman demanded, resolved on clearing the matter
up once for all.
But the lethargic Mr. Wagg was manifestly unable to turn his slow wits
on the single track of the mind and start them off in the opposite
direction.
“No matter about him now,” said the short man. “Give his mind time. A
toadstool grows fast after it gets started.”
This meek surrender helped Vaniman to regain his poise. “If you're
willing to take the truth from me, men, I'll meet you halfway. You have
been frank and open with me. Men who pretend to be better than you, they
have lied to me and about me. That's why I was sent to state prison.”
“Tom and I couldn't do business like we do if we lied to folks of our
kind. Didn't we cash in our word to the trusty? Being in the hole, as
you are right now, you'll excuse me for saying that we consider you one
of our kind.”
“Thank you,” returned the young man, accepting that statement at face
value.
The short man lighted a cigarette and pondered for a few moments. “You
didn't take the money. Tom and I believe what you say. Wagg will catch
up with the procession later. All right, Vaniman! But seeing how anxious
you were to get out and up here, it's likely that you have a pretty
good idea as to who did take the money. If you need any help in squaring
yourself, I'll call your attention to the fact that here are a couple of
gents who have a little spare time on their hands.”
Vaniman was then in no mood to balance the rights and the wrongs of the
case. “I have started in on the basis of the whole truth, and I'm coming
through, men. I'm following your lead. I was framed in that bank matter.
There was a man who had the opportunity to exchange junk for that gold.
He made that opportunity for himself by working on my good nature. The
man is Tasper Britt, who was the president of that bank. He took the
money. He knows where it is.”
“Do you think he is the only one who knows?”
“Naturally, he wouldn't be passing the word around.”
“You're a bank man--you had the run of the premises--you had a chance to
know the general style of his ways! What do you guess he did with it?”
“I'm sticking to the truth--and what I actually know. I'm not guessing.”
“Not even when you say he took the money?”
“I didn't see him take it. But he had a private entrance to the vault.
Everybody was so determined to plaster the guilt on to me that no
move was made against Britt on account of that back door of his. I was
railroaded by perjurers--and Britt was the captain of 'em.”
“There's a corner on 'most everything these days, but it's really
too bad for a man like Britt to have a corner on so much valuable
knowledge,” sighed the short man.
And the tall man sighed and agreed.
Mr. Wagg was catching up. With the appearance of a man who had been
running and was out of breath he panted, “What's--what's gong to be done
about it?”
Vaniman made no suggestions. Having cut the knot of his own entanglement
where these men were concerned, he felt no spirit of alacrity about
inviting them farther into his personal affairs; he realized that he
had merely shifted the course of their dogged pursuit of that money. In
spite of his feelings toward Britt, he was dreading what might come from
the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics
such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged
with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To
employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts
to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised
to involve him more wretchedly.
“Vaniman, suppose you take command and give off your orders,” said the
short man.
“I haven't any sensible plans. I admit that. I have been so pestered and
wrought up by the everlasting bullyragging about the devilish money that
I haven't had a chance to figure out a way of getting at the man who
has ruined me,” Vaniman complained. He strode to and fro, snapping his
fingers, revealing his sense of helplessness.
“Suppose we sleep on the thing--the whole four of us,” suggested the
short man. “I said sleep, please note! This general show-down has
cleared the air up here a whole lot, I'll say! And Wagg has steered away
the dicks! They won't be strolling in, and till we have settled on a
plan I'm sure nobody will feel like strolling out. The night watch is
disbanded.”
He marched off toward the camp. The others trailed on behind him.