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O you are the only lady member of the secret gang that stole my
prisoner!” the sheriff said, laughingly. “The boys told me all about
it.”
“I wasn't taken in till they had done all the work,” Helen smiled. “I
was only an honorary addition, elected more to keep my mouth shut than
for any other service I could perform.”
“Oh, _that_ was it!” Braider laughed. “Well, they certainly put the
thing through. I've mixed up in a lot of hair-raising scrapes in my
time, but that kidnapping business was the brightest idea ever sprung
from a man's head. This fellow Dwight is a corker. Did he tell you what
he went through last night?”
“Not a thing,” replied Helen; “the truth is, I have an idea he was
trying to mislead me.”
“Well, he certainly was if he didn't tell you he had the hardest fight
for his life and that nigger's that ever a man made. You noticed how
hoarse he was, didn't you? That is due to it. The poor chap was up all
last night and drove the biggest part of to-day. I'll bet, strong as he
is, he's as limber as a dish-rag.”
“Then he really had trouble?” Helen breathed, heavily.
“Trouble! And he didn't mention it to you? Young men in this day and
time certainly play their cards peculiar. When I was on the carpet we
boys had a way of making the most to women folks of everything we did,
and it was generally the loudest talker that won the game. But here I
find this 'town dude,' as the country people call his sort, actually
trying to make you think he went to Chattanooga last night in a Pullman
car. Good Lord, it gives me the all-overs to think of it! I heard all
about it. I met a man who was along, and he told me the whole thing from
start to finish.”
“What was it?” Helen asked, breathlessly.
“Why,” answered Braider, casting a glance towards Dwight's as if fearful
of being overheard, “I didn't know it, but somehow the mob had got wind
of what Carson intended to do, and, bless you, they were waiting for him
near the State line primed and cocked. The boy's enemies had fixed him.
They had worked the mob up to the highest pitch of fury with all sorts
of tales against Pete. They had produced men who had really heard the
nigger threaten to harm Johnson, and they themselves testified that
Carson was saving the nigger only to capture black voters as their
friend and benefactor. The mob was mad as Tucker at him for tricking
them the other night, and they certainly had it in for him.”
“They were mad at Carson _personally_, then?” Helen said.
“_Were_ they? They were ready to drink his blood. They halted the buggy,
took them both out, and tied them.”
“Tied Car--” Helen's voice died away, and she stood staring at Braider
unable to speak.
“Yes, they tied them both and led them off into the woods. They then
fastened Pete to a stump and piled sticks and brush around him and told
Carson they were going to make him see them burn the boy alive and when
that was done they intended to silence his tongue by shooting him dead
in his tracks.”
Helen covered her face with her hands and stifled a groan.
“His power of gab saved him, Miss Helen,” Braider went on. “It saved
them both. It wasn't any begging, either; that wouldn't have gone with
that sort of gang. With his hands and feet tied he began to talk--that's
what ails his throat now--and the man that confessed it to me said such
rapid fire of words and argument never before rolled from human lips. He
told them he knew they would kill him; that they were a merciless band
of desperadoes; but he was going to fire some truths at them that they
would remember after he was gone, I'm no talker, Miss Helen. I can't
possibly repeat what the man told me. He said at first Carson couldn't
get their attention, but after awhile, when they were getting ready to
apply the match, something in Dwight's voice caught their ear and they
paused. He talked and talked, until a man behind him, in open defiance,
cut the cords that held his hands. Later another cut his feet loose, and
then Carson walked boldly up to Pete and stood beside him, and although
a growl of fury was still in the air he kept talking. The man that told
me about it said Carson first picked up one of the sticks around the
prisoner and hurled it from him to emphasize something he said, then
another and another, until the mob saw him kicking the sticks away and
roaring out an offer to fight the whole bunch single-handed. Gee whiz!
I'd have given ten years of my life to have heard it. He hadn't a thing
to say in favor of Pete's general character; he said the boy was an
idle, fun-loving, shiftless fellow, but he was innocent of the crime
charged against him and he should not die like a dog. He spoke of the
fine characters of Pete's mother and father and of the old woman's
grief, and then, Miss Helen, he said something about _you_, and the man
that told me about it said that one thing did more to soften and quell
the crowd than anything else.”
“He said something about _me?_” Helen cried. “Me?”
“Yes; no names was mentioned, but they knew who he meant,” Braider went
on. “Carson spoke of your family and of the close bond of human sympathy
between it and all the blacks that had once belonged to your folks,
and said that the daughter of that house, the most beautiful womanly
character that had ever blessed the South, was praying at that moment
for the safety of the prisoner, and if they carried out their plans she
would shed tears of sorrow. 'Your intentions are good,' Carson said.
'You are all sincere men acting, as you see it, in the interests of the
women of the South. Listen to this gentlewoman's prayer uttered through
my mouth to-night for mercy and human justice.'
“It fairly swept them off their feet, Miss Helen. The man that told me
about it said he never saw a more thoroughly shamed lot of men in his
life; he said they released Pete and led the horses around and stood
like mile-posts with nothing to say as Carson drove away. The man that
told me said he'd bet ninety per cent, of the gang would vote for Dwight
this fall. But I must be going; if that young buck knew I'd been telling
you all this he'd give _me_ a tongue-lashing, and I don't want any of
his sort in mine.”
Helen waited for about ten minutes alone on the grass--waited for
Carson. When he finally came out and hurried towards her, he found her
with her handkerchief pressed over her eyes.
“Why, what is the matter, Helen?” he asked, in sudden concern.
She remained silent for a moment, and then with glistening eyes she
looked up at him as he stood pale and disturbed, the plaster still
marking his wound and gleaming in the starlight.
“Why didn't you tell me?” she asked, laying her hand tenderly on his
arm, her voice holding cadences of ineffable sweetness.
“Oh, Braider's been talking to you, I see!” Dwight said, with a frown of
displeasure.
“Why, didn't you tell me, Carson?” she repeated, putting her disengaged
hand on his arm and raising her appealing face till it was close to his.
He shrugged his shoulders, still frowning, and then said, flushing under
her urgent gaze: “Because, Helen, you've already seen and heard too much
of this awful stuff. It really is not fit for a gentle, sensitive girl
like you.”
“Oh, Carson,” she cried, her suffused face held even closer to his, “you
are the dearest, sweetest boy in the world!” and she turned and left
him, left him alone there in his fatigue, alone under the starlight to
fight as he had never fought before the deathless yearning for her.