stone.
Four days he worked over the first page of the _Weekly Eagle_. Johnny
expostulated, stormed, pleaded with tears in his eyes.
"Let's let the whole thing slide," he begged. "All we get out of it
anyway is less'n a dollar and think of all the time we're wasting. That
job for Mr. Fowler isn't all done, and Smith's Meat Market is going to
order some bill-heads."
But Bobby was obstinate. Finally Johnny, in disgust, left him to his own
devices.
The world for Bobby contained but one thing. His recollections of that
time are of a flaring gas jet and the smell of printer's ink. He won
finally and duly delivered the eighteen copies--letter-perfect. Probably
five hundred other and imperfect examples of the _Weekly Eagle_ found
their way into the furnace.
Johnny plucked up heart and returned, only to find that the printing
press question was dead as far as Bobby was concerned.
"I'm sick of printing," was all Bobby would say, and no argument as to
unexploited wealth could move him. The subject had not only lost
interest, but mere casual thought of its details brought on a faint
repetition of the mental lethargy. The sight of the press and its varied
appurtenances threw his mind into the defensive blank coma which
rendered him incapable of the simplest intellectual effort. This was
something as outside Bobby's control as the beating of his heart. He did
not understand it, nor attempt to analyze it.
"I'm sick of it," said he; just as after the labour of building a fort
in Monrovia, he had with the same remark deserted his companions on the
threshold of its enjoyment.
Bobby thought he exercised a choice when he turned from printing, just
as he chose whether to walk on the right or on the left side of the
street. In reality it would have been impossible for him to re-enter his
interest, his enthusiasm; impossible even for him to have accomplished
the mechanical labour of the trade save at an utterly disproportionate
expense of nervous energy.
Bobby did not know this; of course, Johnny was not capable of such
analysis. The only human being who might have understood and worked in
correction of the tendency, read the affair amiss. Mrs. Orde was only
too glad to get Bobby into the open air again, and saw in his
abandonment of this feverish enthusiasm only cause for rejoicing.
So Bobby threw his friend into despair by declining to go on with a
flourishing business. "Bime by," said he. "I'm sick of it, now." As a
matter of fact he never touched the printing press again. His parents
deplored the useless waste of a large amount of money and drew the usual
conclusion that it is foolish to buy children expensive things. No doubt
from that standpoint the affair was deplorable; yet there is this to be
noted, that Bobby's enthusiasm blew out only after he had thought all
around the subject, back front, bottom and sides. He knew that printing
press theoretically and practically and all it could do. As long as it
withheld the smallest secret Bobby clung to it, his soul at white heat.
But the repetition and again the repetition of what he had learned
thoroughly struck cold his every higher faculty. He shrugged it all from
him, and turned with unabated freshness his inquiring child's eyes to
what new the world had to offer him.
XXI
WINTER
After the collapse of the printing business Bobby and Johnny turned to
Bobby Junior and the little sleigh. They drove often, far into the
country. It was the dead of winter. The country was wide and still and
white. Against the prevailing note of the snow the patches of woods
showed almost black. The landscape looked strangely flattened out, and
bereft of life. Nevertheless that impression was false, for the little
sleigh climbed and dipped over many hills and hollows; and the boys were
continually seeing living things and their indications. Tracks of small
animals embroidered the snow. Strange tame birds hopped here and there
or rose and swept down wind with plaintive pipings that, in spite of
their lack of fear, lent them a spirit of wildness akin to the aloof
savaging of winter winds in bared trees. Bobby and Johnny recognized the
snow buntings, tossing in compact big companies like flakes in a
whirlwind, the unsoiled white effect of their plumage shaming the snow.
Besides these were little red-polls, dressed warmly in magenta and brown
for the winter, hopping and clinging among the seed-weeds exposed by the
breezes; and hardy, impudent, harsh-voiced blue-jays, cloaking much
villany and cunning under wondrous suits of clothes; and trim, neat
cedar wax-wings, perching on elevated twigs, always apparently at
leisure; in the woods, whole bands of chickadees and nuthatches,
cruising it cheerfully, calling to each other in their varied notes,
tiny atoms defying all the cold and famine Old Winter could bring. Once
they were vastly excited to catch sight of a hoary, wide-winged monster
sweeping like a ghost close to the snow. They surmised it might be a
Great Snow Owl, like the stuffed one in the English library, but they
never knew. And again, in some trees alongside the road, they came upon
a large flock of stocky-built birds, a little smaller than robins, so
tame that the boys drove beneath them and could see their thick bills,
and the marvellous clarity of the sunset yellow of their heads, shading
to twilight down their backs, to black night on their wings, barred by a
strip of clear white moonlight. They agreed that these were most
unusual-looking creatures. How unusual any naturalist would have been
glad to tell them; for these were that great and prized rarity, the
Evening Grosbeak. So, too, in the pine woods they were showered by bits
of cones, and looked aloft to make out a distant little bird busily
engaged in tearing the cones to pieces. They laughed at his industry,
but would have been immensely interested could they have examined at
close hand the Crossbill's beak and its singular adaption to just this
task. And of course they remarked the stately deliberate-looking prints
of the grouse; and the herded tramping of the quail. The winter was
populous enough, in spite of its rigour. Some of its many creatures the
boys knew; many more they did not; but you may be sure they saw all that
did not exercise the closest circumspection.
For miles about, the little sleigh explored the country: main-road, worn
smooth by countless farmer-sleighs; by-roads, through which the pony had
to wallow belly-deep, making a new track. Not the mere pleasure of
driving lured them out--that amounted to little after the week of
novelty--but something of the spirit of exploration was in it. Duke
always accompanied them, plunging powerfully through the deepest drifts,
exulting in the snow, rolling in it, frisking in it in all directions,
racing down the road and back, glad to be alive and warm this freezing
weather. One day in a patch of woods he came to an abrupt halt. The
boys, watching, saw his eye fixed, his upper lip snarl back the least in
the world, his tail stiffen except at its quivering tip, his whole body
lengthen and half-crouch and turn rigid. And as the sleigh wallowed near
him, suddenly, with an immense scattering of snow and a startling roar,
an old cock-partridge burst from beneath the surface of the snow and
hurtled away through the frozen trees.
Some days when the wind blew keen and sharp as knives across the broad
reaches, it was almost impossible for the boys to keep warm. The heated
soap-stone wrapped up at their feet, the warm buffalo robes under and
over them, their thick overcoats and fur caps alike proved inadequate.
Then one took his turn at driving, while the other crouched entirely
covered beneath the robes. The wind drove the hard, sparse flakes from
the low leaden sky like so many needles against the driver's face,
filling his eyes with tears, causing his skin to glow and smart. Even in
this was a certain joy and adventure. But again the sun would shine, the
bells jingle louder in the clarified air. Probably, however, the boys
liked best of all the warm, still snowstorms, when all the world was
muffled in the shoes of silence; when nature held her finger on hushed
lips; when deliberately, without haste the great white flakes zigzagged
down from the soft gray above, obscuring and softening the landscape,
rendering dear and mysterious the commonest things. Then sounds came,
subdued as in a sanctuary, and people approaching showed portentous as
through a mist, and the boys, looking upward, caught big wet flakes on
their lashes as they tried in vain to determine the point at which the
snowflakes became visible. There existed no such point. The snowflakes
did not approach as other things approach, beginning small with
distance, and becoming larger as they neared. They flashed into sight
full-grown. It was as though they had fallen wrapped in invisibility
until the great Magician had uttered the word. That was Bobby's secret
thought, which he told nobody. Often he imagined he could hear the word
repeated all about him, _presto! presto! presto! presto!_ like the
distant hushed falling of waters. And as the charm was said, he, looking
skyward, could see the big soft flakes flash into view out of nothing.
XXII
THE MURDER
So successful did the friendship between the two boys turn out to be
that next autumn Johnny English was invited to visit the Ordes at
Monrovia. He accepted very promptly, and, as the distance was short,
brought with him the cart and pony. The country around Monrovia was very
interesting to them. Riverland, marshland, swampland, shore and meadow,
all offered themselves in the most diversified forms. The sandy roads
wound over the hills, down the ravines, along the corduroys and
float-bridges. Life was varied. The boys, armed with their Flobert
rifle, wandered far afield.
They did not get very much, it is true, but they popped away steadily,
and did a grand amount of sneaking and looking. And they managed first
and last to see a great deal. In the snipe marshes they knew when the
first flight dropped in--and murdered a killdeer as he stood. Out in the
sloughs they marked the earnest red-heads from the north--and
accomplished two mud-hens, a ruddy duck, and a dozen blackbirds. In the
uplands they knew almost to a feather how many partridge each thicket
had bred; to a covey where the quail used; and once in a great while, by
strategy on their own side and foolishness on the part of the quarry,
they caught one sitting and brought it down. What is quite as much to
the point, they felt the season as it changed. The gradual
transformation from the green of summer to the brown and lilac of late
autumn, the low swinging of the sun, the mellowing of the days, the
broad-hung curtain of sweet smoke-breeze, the hushing of the vital
forces of the world in anticipation of winter--all these passed near
them and, passing, touched their eyes. They were too busy to notice such
things consciously, however. The influence sank deep and became part of
the permanent background against which their lives were to be thrown.
At first some doubt was expressed as to the wisdom of that Flobert
rifle. To turn two small boys loose with a deadly weapon seemed to Mrs.
Orde a rather strong temptation of Providence. Mr. Kincaid spoke for
them. In the end it was decided, though with many misgivings and more
admonitions.
"Keep the muzzle pointed up; never get excited; never shoot at anything
unless you _know_ what it is," was Mr. Kincaid's summing up.
These three precepts were so constantly impressed that to the boys their
practice ended by becoming second nature.
"It's not only dangerous to do these things," said Mr. Kincaid, "but
it's a sure sign of a greenhorn. A man ought to be deadly ashamed to
confess himself such an all-round dub."
Toward the end of the fall, and nearing Thanksgiving, the boys drove
Bobby Junior out the old east road. After a time they turned off into a
by-way deep with sand. It ended. They hitched the placid Bobby Junior to
the top rail of a "snake-fence" climbed it, and headed toward a
scrub-oak and popple thicket thrown like a blanket over the long slope
of a hill. They walked cautiously, for by experience they had learned
that at the very edge, and in the lea of an old burned log, it was
possible a fine big cock-partridge might be sunning himself. The
popples, shining silvery, were almost bare of leaves, but the scrub oaks
clung tenaciously to a crackling umber-brown foliage. It was now near
the close of the afternoon. The game bag was empty. Both boys trod on
eggs, scrutinizing every inch of the ground before them.
"It's too late for 'em," whispered Bobby in discouragement. "There's not
enough sun. They've gone in to feed."
But Johnnie seized his arm.
"There," he breathed, "See him! He's sitting in that little scrub
oak--just to the left of the stub."
Bobby peered along his friend's arm. After a moment he made out a
mottled spot of brown.
"I see him," said he, cocking his rifle. "It's his breast. I wish I
could get at his head."
"He'll be gone in a minute!" warned Johnny.
It was Bobby's turn to shoot. He raised his weapon, aimed carefully, and
pressed the trigger.
Immediately the thicket broke into a tremendous commotion. A scurrying
of leaves, a brief exclamation of pain, a brown cap whirling through the
air--and both boys turned and ran, ran as hard as they could up the hill
until sheer lack of breath brought them to the ground. They stared at
each other with frightened eyes from faces chalky white.
"We've killed somebody!" gasped Johnny.
They clung to each other trembling with the horror of it, utterly unable
to gather their faculties. This was just what so often both had been
cautioned against--the shooting without seeing clearly the object of
aim. To the shock of a catastrophe they had to add the sinking remorse
over warnings disobeyed.
"What are we going to do?" chattered Johnny at last.
"We got to go down and see----"
"I daresn't" confessed Johnny miserably.
"Do you suppose he's dead?"
"They'll probably put us in jail."
"Come on," said Bobby at last.
They arose, very giddy and uncertain on their feet. For the first time
they forced themselves to look at the copse lying below them.
"Oh!" breathed Johnny, "Look!"
Below them on the farther edge of the copse, and over a quarter of a
mile away, they saw Mr. Kincaid. He was bareheaded. Curly was with him.
The man was trying to send the water spaniel into the copse. Curly
pretended that he wanted to play, and did not in the least understand
what it was all about. He capered joyously around Mr. Kincaid's
outstretched arm; he pressed his chest to the earth and uttered short
barks; he chased madly around in circles, but he did not enter the
copse, which was plainly his master's desire. Finally Mr. Kincaid gave
it up and departed over the brow of the next hill.
And while this little by-play was going on two small boys above him felt
the warmth of life flowing back into their frozen souls. The blood
returned to their lips, their thumping hearts calmed, all the blessed
joy and sunshine and freedom of the world flooded in a return tide of
blessed relief.
"Gee," said Johnny, "I'm never going hunting again! Never any more!
Never!"
"You bet I'm going to be careful after this," said Bobby. "My, but I'm
glad!"
"I wonder why he didn't pick up his cap?" wondered Johnny.
"Perhaps he had it in his hand."
The boys drove home ringing the changes on a thousand new resolutions of
caution.
"It's a good lesson to us," said Bobby by way of reminiscent philosophy
often heard before.
They put Bobby Junior into the barn, cleaned the Flobert, changed their
hunting clothes, and answered with alacrity the summons to the dining
room. After they were well started with the meal, Mr. Orde came in and
sat down. He nodded abstractedly, and had little to say. The boys were
too far down in remorse to care to bring up any of the subjects near
their hearts. Finally Mrs. Orde remarked this general depression.
"I must say you're a cheerful lot of men folks," said she. "What is it?
Business?" She smiled at the boys in raillery at the idea. But she could
not cheer them up. As soon as the meal was over Mr. Orde dismissed the
boys.
"Run along now," said he briefly; "I want to talk."
They climbed the stairs to Bobby's room, and sat down glumly on the
floor. Reaction was strong, and they had both fallen into aimless
doldrums of spirit. Suddenly Bobby sat up straight at attention.
The Orde house was provided with old-fashioned hot-air registers. When
the registers happened all to be open, they constituted most excellent
speaking-tubes. Thus, without intention of deliberate eavesdropping,
Bobby and his friend became aware of the following conversation.
"What's the matter, Jack? Anything wrong at the office or on the River?"
Mr. Orde sighed deeply.
"Oh, no. Everything's snug as a bug in a rug, sweetheart," said he. "But
I'm bothered a lot. A dreadful thing happened to-day. You know that
popple thicket out at Pritchard's place?"
Both boys froze into horrified attention.
"Yes."
"Well, just before dusk Pritchard was found dead near the east end of
it."
"Why, how did that happen?" cried Mrs. Ode.
The boys stole a look at each other.
"He had been murdered."
"Murdered!" cried Mrs. Orde sharply.
"Oh!" moaned Bobby in a smothered voice.
"Yes. He was found with a knife wound in his throat."
"How terrible!" said Mrs. Orde.
"But that isn't what worries me. Pritchard is no irreparable loss."
"Jack!" cried Mrs. Orde.
"He isn't," insisted Orde stoutly. "But Kincaid was seen by several
competent witnesses coming out from that thicket, and as far as anybody
has been able to find out he is the only human being who was out there
to-day. They have him under arrest."
"I never heard of anything so ridiculous!" cried Mrs. Orde indignantly.
"There has been bad blood between them," said Orde; "and everybody knows
it. That's the trouble. Pritchard, as usual, has off and on done an
awful lot of talking."
"You don't for a moment believe----"
"Certainly not. Arthur Kincaid never would harm a fly in anger. And I
rely absolutely on his word."
"You've seen him?"
"Of course. He acknowledges he was out at Pritchard's, but denies all
knowledge of the affair. That's the trouble. He offers no explanation of
the facts, and the facts are--queer."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this; the men who saw Kincaid coming out of the thicket say he
was bareheaded. When Pritchard's body was found, Kincaid's cap was
discovered about fifty feet distant."
"What does he say to that?"
"His story is so ridiculous that I wouldn't blame anybody who did not
know Kincaid for not believing it. He says he was playing with his dog
Curly, when Curly grabbed the cap and made off with it. The dog came
back without the cap, and Kincaid could not find it. That's all he says,
except that he was not in the thicket at all, and certainly not within a
quarter-mile of the scene of the murder."
"That might be so."
"Of course it's so, if Arthur Kincaid says it is," insisted Orde, "but
what do you think of this? The cap had a 22-calibre bullet hole through
the crown; and Pritchard was armed with a 22-calibre rifle."
"What does Mr. Kincaid say to it?"
"That's just the trouble," cried Orde in despairing tones. "If he'd
plead self-defence any jury in Michigan would acquit him without leaving
the box. But when we asked him how that bullet hole got in that cap, he
simply says that he doesn't know; it wasn't there when he lost the cap!
Could anything be more absurd!"
Bobby reached out and softly closed the register.
He turned to grip Johnny fiercely by the arm. His eyes blazed.
"Mr. Kincaid is my friend," he hissed. "Understand that? He's my best
friend. If you ever say anything about this afternoon----"
"Let go!" cried Johnny struggling. "You hurt! You needn't get mad about
it. He's my friend, too. I ain't going to say anything." Bobby released
his arm. "He must have done it, though," concluded Johnny.
"Of course he did it. I'd have done it. Pritchard was an old beast. You
ought to have been along with me when he ordered us off his land."
"Mr. Kincaid says he was never up at that end."
"There's his cap, with the hole I shot in it," Bobby pointed out. "It
was right where Pritchard was when I shot at it."
Johnny nodded.
"If we let that get out, they'll have us in as witnesses."
"We mustn't," said Johnny.
Following this policy the boys for the next month carried about an air
of secrecy and an irresponsibility of action very irritating to
everybody. They forgot errands, they did absent-minded, destructive
things, they were much given to long consultations behind the woodshed.
When they were permitted to visit Mr. Kincaid at the jail, they tried
mysteriously to convey assurance of absolute secrecy, but succeeded
only in appearing stupid, frivolous and unsympathetic. Nevertheless
their concern was very real. Bobby in especial brooded over the affair
to the exclusion of all other interests. The Flobert rifle was laid
away, the printing press gathered dust. Over and over he visualized the
scene, until he could shut his eyes and reproduce its every detail--the
hillside with its scattered, half-burned old logs, the popple thicket
shining white, the scrub oaks with red rustling leaves, the patch of
brown that looked exactly like a partridge; and then the whirl of the
cap in the air as the bullet struck, and the horrible sinking feeling
before he turned to flee. A dozen small things he had not noticed
consciously at the time, now stood out clear. He remembered that the
supposed partridge had stood out against the sky; that the ground broke
gently up just beyond the black log. "Mr. Kincaid must have been
standing on a stump," he thought. He recalled now his own exact
position, and figured the course of the bullet. "It must have gone in
just at the tip top," he figured. "That's the only way it could have
done without hurting his head. Otherwise, it would have scalped him."
Over and over he turned the facts until gradually he evolved an exact
picture of what had occurred--here was the victim, here the murderer.
Inquiry disclosed the spot where Pritchard's body had been found. It was
up-hill from the spot Bobby had shot the cap--and about ten feet away.
"He must just have done it," he said with a shudder.
"Why?" demanded Johnny to whom he confided these reasonings. "Maybe it
was before."
"No," argued Bobby. "Because then when I shot the cap off, if Pritchard
had been alive, we'd have heard from him."
"Maybe Mr. Kincaid killed him to keep him from chasing us," suggested
Johnny.
Bobby considered this romantic suggestion but shook his head.
"No," said he, "there wasn't time for Mr. Kincaid to kill him and then
walk down to the other end of the thicket. He must have run when I
shot."
"Do you think they'll convict Mr. Kincaid?"
"Papa says he doesn't think so," said Bobby. "He says nobody can prove
Mr. Kincaid was at the place."
"We could."
"We're going to shut up!" said Bobby sharply.
XXIII
THE TRIAL
General opinion did not, however, share Mr. Orde's optimism. The
circumstantial evidence was very strong. Interest in the trial was such
that people came from far out in the country to attend it. Every day of
the preliminaries the court-room was filled with silent spectators. The
boys, eluding the vigilance of the women and utterly disregarding
specific commands, found themselves unable to get beyond the outer
corridor. Here they hung around for some time in the vain hope of
hearing something. The heavy breathing and jostling of the crowd about
them was their only reward. Finally they gave it up and wandered out
into the grounds.
It was by now nearly December of a remarkably open year. Although Indian
summer had long since gone, and although the low black clouds and heavy
gales of late autumn had given repeated warnings, winter had somehow
failed to arrive. There was as yet no snow; and the sun, turned silver
in place of the harvest gold, sometimes, as now, dispersed considerable
warmth. In consequence of the mildness without and the crowd within, the
windows of the court-room had been lowered at the top. The boys could
almost catch the words of whoever was speaking.
"Come on, let's shin up that tree," suggested Johnny.