[Illustration: 9285]
HE young men pretended to be deeply absorbed over their work when the
stalwart officer loomed up in the doorway, his broad-brimmed hat well
back on his head, the flush of intoxicants in his tanned face, his step
unsteady.
“I hope I won't disturb you, gentlemen,” he said; “but you are two men
that I want to talk to--I might say talk to as a brother.”
“Come in, come in, Braider,” Carson said; “take that chair.”
[Illustration: 0283]
As Braider moved with uncertain step to a chair, tilted it to one side
to divest it of its burden of books, newspapers, and old briefs and
other defunct legal documents, Garner with a wary look in his eye fished
a solitary cigar from his pocket--the one he had reserved for a mid-day
smoke--and prof-ered it.
“Have a cigar,” he said, “and make yourself comfortable.”
The sheriff took the cigar as absent-mindedly as he would, in his
condition, have received a large banknote, and held it too tightly for
its preservation in his big red hand.
“Yes, I want to talk to you boys, and I want to say a whole lot that I
hope won't go any further. I've always meant well by you two, and hoped
fer your success both in the law--and politics.”
Garner cast an amused glance, in spite of the gravity of the situation,
at his partner, and then said, quite evenly, “We know that, Braider--we
always _have_ known it.”
“Well, as I say, I want to _talk_ to you. I've heard that an honest
confession is good for the soul, if not for the pocket, and I'm here to
make one, as honest as I kin spit it out.”
“Oh, that's it?” said Garner, and with a wary look of curiosity on his
face he sat waiting.
“Yes, and I want to begin back at the first and sort o' lead up. It's
hard to keep a fellow's political leaning hid, Carson, and I reckon
you may have heard that I had some notion of casting my luck in with
Wiggin.”
“After he began circulating those tales about me, yes,” Carson said,
with a touch of severity; “not before, Braider--at least not when I
worked as I did the last time for your own election.”
“You are plumb right,” the sheriff said, readily enough. “I flopped over
sudden, I'll acknowledge; but that's neither here nor there.” He paused
for a moment and the lawyers exchanged steady glances.
“He may want to make a bargain with us,” Garner's eyes seemed to say,
but Carson's mind had grasped other and more dire possibilities as he
recalled Blackburn's remark of a few minutes before. In fact all those
assurances of good-will might mean naught else than that the sheriff--at
the instigation of Wiggin and others--had come actually to arrest him as
the leader of the men who had intimidated the county jailer and
stolen away the State's prisoner. The thought seemed to be borne
telepathically to Garner, for that worthy all at once sat more rigidly,
more aggressively defiant in his chair, and the pen he was chewing
was suspended before his lips. This beating about the bush, in serious
things, at least, was not Garner's method.
“Well, well, Braider,” he said, with a change of tone and manner, “tell
us right out what you want. The day is passing and we've got lots to
do.”
“All right, all right,” agreed the intoxicated man; “here goes. Boys,
what I'm going to say is a sort of per-personal matter. You've both
treated me like a respectable citizen and officer of the law, and I've
taken it just as if I fully deserved the honor. But Jeff Braider ain't
no hypocrite, if he _is_ a politician and hobnobs with that sort of
riffraff. Boys, always, away down at the bottom of everything I ever did
tackle in this life, has been the memory of my old mother's teachings,
and I've tried my level best, as a man, to live up to 'em. I don't know
as I ever come nigh committing crime--as I regard it--till here lately.
Crime, they tell me, stalks about in a good many disguises. The crime
I'm talking about had two faces to it. You could look at it one way
and it would seem all right, and then from another side it would look
powerful bad. Well, I first saw this thing the night the mob raided
Neb Wynn's shanty and run Pete Warren out and chased him to your house,
Carson. You may not want to look me in the eye ag'in, my boy, when I
tell you, but I could have come to your aid a sight quicker that night
than I did if I hadn't been loaded down with so many fears of injury
to myself. As I saw that big mob rushing like a mad river after that
nigger, I said to myself, I did, that no human power or authority could
save 'im anyway, and that if I stood up before the crowd and tried to
quiet them, that--well, if I wasn't shot dead in my tracks I'd kill
myself politically, and so I waited in the edge of the crowd, hiding
like a sneak-thief, till--till you did the work, and then I stepped up
as big as life and pretended that I'd just arrived.”
“Oh!” Garner exclaimed, and he stared at the bowed head of the officer
with a look of wonder in his eyes; and it was a look of hope, too,
for surely no human being of exactly _this_ stamp would take unfair
advantage of any one.
“That was the _first_ time,” Braider gulped, as he went on, his glance
now directed solely to Carson. “My boy, I went to bed that night, after
we jailed that nigger, feeling meaner than an egg-sucking dog looks when
he's caught in the act. If there is anything on earth that will shame a
man it is to see another display more moral and physical courage than he
does, and you did enough of both that night to show me where I stood. It
was a new thing to me, and it made me mad. I was a good soldier in the
war--I wear a Confederate veteran's badge that was pinned onto my coat
in public by the | beautiful daughter of a dead comrade--but being shot
at in a bunch ain't the same as being the _only_ target, and I showed my
limit.”
“Oh, you are exaggerating the whole thing,” Carson said, with a flush of
embarrassment.
“No I ain't, Carson Dwight,” Braider said, feelingly, and he took out
his red cotton handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “You showed me that
night the difference between bravery, so-called, and the genuine thing.
I reckon bravery for personal gain is a weak imitation of bravery that
acts just out of human pity as yours did that night. Well, that ain't
all. The next day I was put to a worse test than ever. It was noised
about, you know, that a bigger mob than the first was rising. I stayed
out of the centre of town as much as I could, for everywhere I went
folks would look at me as if they thought I'd surely do something to
protect the prisoner, and at home my wife was whimpering around all day,
saying she was sure Pete was innocent, or enough so to deserve a trial,
if not for himself for the sake of his mammy and daddy. But what was
such a wavering thing as I was to do? I took it that seventy-five per
cent, of the men who had backed me with their ballot in my election was
bent on lynching the prisoner, and if I opposed them they would consider
me a traitor. On the other hand, I was up against this: if I did put
up a feeble sort of opposition and gave in easy under pressure, the
conservative men, like some we have here in town, would say I didn't
mean business or I'd have actually opened fire on the mob. You see,
boys, I wasn't man enough to take a stand either way, and though I well
knew what was coming, I went about lying like a dog--lying in my throat,
telling everybody that the indications showed that the excitement had
quieted down. I went home that night and told my wife all was serene,
and I drank about a quart of rye whiskey to keep me from thinking about
the business and went to bed, but my conscience, I reckon, was stronger
than my whiskey, for I rolled and tumbled all night. It seemed to me
that I was, with my own hands, tying the rope around that pore nigger's
neck. There I lay, a sworn officer of the law, flat on my back with
not enough moral courage in my miserable carcass to have killed a gnat.
Carson, if I saw you once before my eyes that long night, I saw you
five hundred times. Your speech rang over and over in my ears. I saw you
stand there when a ball had already grazed your brow and defy them to
shoot again. I saw that poor black boy clinging to your knees, and
knew that the light of Heaven had shone on you, while I lay in the hot
darkness of the bottomless pit.”
“God, you do put it strong!” Garner exclaimed.
“I'm not putting it half strong enough,” the sheriff went on. “I don't
deserve to hold office even in a community half run by mob law. But I
ain't through. I ain't through yet. I got up early that awful morning,
and went out to feed my hogs at a pen that stands on a back street, and
there a woman milking a cow told me that it was over Pete Warren was
done for--guilty or not, he was done for. I went in the house and tried
to gulp down my breakfast, faced by my wife, who wouldn't speak to me,
and showed in other ways what she thought about the whole thing. She was
eternally sighing and going on about old Mammy Lindy and her feelings. I
first went to the jail, and there I was told that two mobs had come, the
first the Hillbend crowd, who did the work, and the bigger mob that got
there too late.”
Braider's voice had grown husky and he coughed. Garner stole a searching
glance of inquiry at Carson, but Dwight, his face suffused with a warm
look of pity for the speaker, was steadily staring through the open
door.
“I ain't done yet, God knows I ain't,” the sheriff gulped. “That morning
I felt meaner than any convict that ever wore ball and chain. If I'd
been tried and found guilty of stabbing a woman in the back I don't
believe I could have felt less like a man. I tried to throw it all off
by thinking that I couldn't have done any good anyway, but it wouldn't
work. Carson, you and your plucky stand for the maintenance of law was
before me, and you wasn't paid for the work while I was. Huh! do you
remember seeing me as you came out of Blackburn's store that morning,
with your hair all tousled up and your eyes looking red and bloodshot?”
“Yes, I remember seeing you,” said Dwight. “I would have stopped to
speak to you but--but I was in a hurry to get home.”
“Well, you may have heard that I used to be a sort of a one-horse
detective,” Braider went on, “and I had acquired a habit of looking
for the explanation of nearly every unusual thing I saw, and--well,
you coming out of that store before it was opened for trade, while the
shutters in the front was still closed, struck me as odd. Then again,
remembering your big interest in Pete's case, somehow, it didn't seem to
me--meeting you sudden that way--that you looked quite as downhearted
as I expected. In fact, I thought you appeared sort o' satisfied over
something.”
“Oh!” Garner exclaimed, all at once suspecting Braider of a gigantic
ruse to entrap them. “You thought he looked chipper, did you? Well, I
must say he looked exactly the other way to me when I first saw him that
day.”
“Well, it started me to wondering, anyway,” went on the sheriff,
ignoring Garner's interruption, “and I set to work to watch. I hung
about the restaurant across the street, smoking a cigar and keeping my
eyes on that store. After awhile I saw Bob Smith go in the store and
then Wade Tingle. Then I saw a big tray of grub covered with a white
cloth sent from the Johnston House, and Bob Smith come to the door and
took it in, sending the coon that fetched it back to the hotel. Well,
I waited a minute or two and then sauntered, careless-like, across and
went in. I chatted awhile with Bob and Wade, noticing, I remember, that
for a newspaper man Wade seemed powerful indifferent about gathering
items about what had happened, and that Blackburn was busy folding up
a tangled lot of short pieces of white sheeting. All this time I was
looking about to see where that waiter full of grub had gone. Not a
sign of it was in sight, but in a lull in the talk I heard the clink of
crockery somewhere below me, and I caught on. Boys, I'm here to tell you
that never did a condemned soul feel as I felt. I went out in the open
air praying, actually praying, that what I suspected might be true. I
started for the jail and on the way met Burt Barrett. I asked him for
particulars, and when he said that the Hillbend mob had left word that
nobody need even look for the remains of the boy my heart gave a big
jump in the same way as it had when that clip and saucer collided in
that cellar. I asked Burt if he noticed which way the mob tuck the
prisoner, and he said down towards town. I asked him if it wasn't odd
for Hillbend folks to go that way to hang a man, and he agreed that it
was. Well, to make a long story short, I was on to your gigantic ruse,
and God above knows what a load it took off of me. You had saved me,
Carson--you had saved me from toting that crime to my grave. I knew
you were the ringleader, for I didn't know anybody else who would have
thought of such a plan. You are a sight younger man than I am, but you
stuck to principle, while I shirked principle, duty, and everything
else. Doing all that was hurting your political chances, and you knew
it, but you stuck to what was right all the same.”
“Yes, he certainly has queered his political chances,” Garner said,
grimly, with a look of wonder in his eye over the sheriff's frank
confession. “But you, I think you said, were a Wiggin man,” he finished.
“Well, Wiggin and some others _think_ I am yet,” said Braider; “and
I reckon I was till this thing come up; but, boys, I guess I've got
a little smidgin of good left in me, for somehow Wiggin has turned my
stomach. But I hain't got to what I was leading up to. Neither one of
you hain't admitted that there is a nigger in that wood-pile yet, and I
don't blame you for keeping it to yourselves. That is your business,
but the time has come when Jeff Braider's got to do the right thing or
plunge deeper into hellishness, and he's had a taste of what it means
and don't want no more of it. I may lose all I've got by it. Wiggin and
his gang may beat me to a cold finish next election, but from now on I'm
on the other side.”
“Good,” said Garner; “that's the way to talk. Was that what you were
leading up to, Braider?”
“Not altogether,” and the sheriff rose and stood over Carson, resting
his hand on the young man's shoulder to steady himself. “My boy, I've
come to tell you that the damnedest, blackest plot agin you that ever
was laid has been hatched out.”
“What is that, Braider?” Carson asked, calmly enough under the
circumstances.
“Wiggin and his gang have found out that a trick was played night before
last. The Hillbend men convinced them that they didn't lynch anybody,
and the Wiggin crowd smelt around until they dropped on to the thing.
The only fact they are short on is where the boy is hid. They think he
is in the house of one of the negro preachers. Wiggin come to me, not
half an hour ago, and considering me one of his stand-bys, he told me
all about it. The scheme is for me to arrest Pete and jail 'im on the
charge of murder and then to arrest you fer being the ringleader of a
jail-breaking gang, who preaches law and order in public for political
gain and breaks both in secret.”
“And what do they think will become of Pete?” Carson asked, a touch of
supreme bitterness in his tone.
“Wiggin didn't say; but I know what would happen to him. The seeds of
bloody riot are being strewn broadcast by the handful. They've been to
every member of the crowd that lynched Sam Dudlow and warned them, on
their lives, not to repeat the statement that Dudlow had said Pete was
innocent. They told the lynchers that you two lawyers were on the hunt
for men who had heard the confession and intend to use that as evidence
against them.”
“Ah, that _is_ slick, slick!” Garner muttered.
“Slick as double-distilled goose-grease,” said Braider. “The lynchers
are denying to friend or foe that Dudlow said a word, and the news is
spreading like wildfire that Pete was Dudlow's accomplice, and that you,
Carson, are trying, with a gang of town dudes, to carry your point by
main, bull-headed force.”
“I see, I see.” Carson had risen and with a deep frown on his face stood
leaning against the top of his desk. He extended his hand to the officer
and said, “I appreciate your telling me all this, Braider, more than I
can say.”
“What's the good of my telling you if the news doesn't benefit you?”
the sheriff asked. “Carson, I want to see you win. I ain't half a man
myself, but I've got two little boys just starting to grow up, and I
wish they could be like you--a two-legged bull-dog that clamps his teeth
on what's right and won't let loose. Carson, you've got a chance--a bare
chance--to get your man out alive.”
“What's that?” Dwight asked, eagerly.
“Why, let me hold the mob in check by promising to arrest Pete, and
you get some trusty feller to take him in a buggy to-night through the
country to Chattanooga. It would be a ticklish trip, and you want a man
that won't get scared at his shadow, for on every road out of Darley,
men will be on the lookout, but if you once got him there he would be
absolutely safe, for no mob would go out of the State to do work of that
sort. Getting a good man is the main thing.”
“I'll do it myself,” Dwight said, firmly. “You?” Garner cried. “That's
absurd!”
“I'm the only one who _could_ do it,” Carson declared, “for Pete would
not go with any one else.”
“I really believe you are right,” Garner agreed, reluctantly; “but it is
a nasty undertaking after all you've been through.”
“By gum!” exclaimed Braider, extending his hand to Dwight. “I hope you
will do it. I want to see you complete a darn good all-round job.” >
“Well, you _are_ an officer of the law,” Garner observed, with amusement
written all over his rugged face, “asking a man to steal your own
prisoner.”
“What else can I do that's at all decent?” Braider asked. “Besides,
do you fellows know that there never has been any written warrant for
Pete's arrest. I started to jail him without any, and old Mrs. Parsons
turned him loose. The only time he was put in jail was by Carson
himself. By George! as I look at it, Carson, you have every right to
take him out of jail, by any hook or crook, since you was responsible
for him being there instead of hanging to a limb of a tree. I tell
you, my boy, there ain't any law on earth that can touch you. Nobody is
prepared to testify against Pete, and if you will get him to Chattanooga
and keep him there for a while he can come back here a free man.”
“I have friends there who will look after him,” Dwight said. “I'll start
with him to-night.”