[Illustration: 9390]
N his office in one corner of his great grain and cotton warehouse, at a
dusty, littered desk before a murky, cobweb-bed window, Garner found
old Dwight, his lap full of telegraphic reports, his head submerged in a
morning paper containing the market and crop news in general. Outside of
the thin-walled office heavy iron trucks, in the grasp of brawny black
men, rattled and rumbled over the heavy floor and across weighty skids
into open cars in the rear. There was the creaking sound of the big hand
elevators engaged in hoisting and lowering bales, barrels, bags, and
casks, the mellow sing-song of the light-hearted negroes as they toiled,
blissfully ignorant of the profound gloom which had fallen on the
defender of their rights.
“I came to see you on an important matter concerning Carson,” Garner
began, as he leaned over the old man's desk.
Dwight lowered his paper, shrugged his shoulders, and sniffed.
“Campaign funds, I reckon,” he said. “Well, I've been looking for some
such demand. In fact, I've been astonished that you fellows haven't
been after me sooner. I'll do anything but buy whiskey to give away. I'm
against that custom.”
“It wasn't _that_,” said Garner, who, usually plain-spoken, shrank from
beating about the bush even in so delicate a matter. “The truth is,
Carson is in a little trouble, Mr. Dwight.”
“Trouble?” the merchant said, bluntly. “Will you kindly show me when
he's ever been out of it? Since the day he was born it's been scrape
after scrape. By all possessed, Billy, when he wasn't a year old I had
to spend fifty dollars to encase all the chimneys in with iron grating
to keep him from crawling into the fire. He's walked or stumbled into
every fire that was made since then. When he was only twelve a man out
at the farm fell in a well and nothing would do Carson but that he must
go down after him. He did it, fastened the only available rope about the
man and sent him to the top, and when they lowered it to Carson he was
so nearly drowned that he could hardly sit in the loop. If I had a list
of the scrapes that boy went through at home and at college I'd sell it
to some blood-and-thunder novel writer. It would make his fortune. Well,
what is it now?”
“Carson is in very serious trouble I'm afraid, Mr. Dwight,” Garner said,
as he took a chair and sat down. “You will have to prepare yourself for
a pretty sharp shock. He couldn't help it. It was pushed on him to
such an extent that there was no other way out of it and retain his
self-respect. Mr. Dwight, you, of course, heard of Dan Willis's death?”
“Yes, and thought that now that he was under the sod Carson would
surely--”
“The death was not an accident, Mr. Dwight,”
Garner interrupted, and his eyes rested steadily on the old man's face.
“You mean that Willis killed himself--that he--”
“I mean that he _forced_ Carson to kill him, Mr. Dwight.”
The old merchant's face was working as if in the throes of death; he
leaned forward, his eyes wide in growing horror.
“Don't, don't say that, Billy; take it back!” he gasped. “Anything but
that--anything else under God's shining sun.”
“You must try to be calm,” Garner said, gently. “It can't be helped.
After all, the poor boy was forced to do it to save his life.”
Old Dwight lowered his face to his hands and groaned. The negro at the
head of the gang of truckmen approached and leaned in the doorway. He
had come to ask some directions about the work, but with widening eyes
he stood staring. Garner peremptorily waved him away, and, rising, he
laid his hand on Dwight's shoulder.
“Don't take it so hard!” he said, soothingly. “Remember, there is a lot
to do, and that's what I came to see you about.”
Old Dwight raised his blearing eyes, which, in his pallid face now
looked bloodshot, and stammered out: “What is there to do? What does it
mean? How was it kept till now? Was he trying to hide it?”
“Yes”--Garner nodded--“the poor boy has been bearing it in secret. He
was afraid the news of it would seriously injure his mother.”
“And it will!” Dwight groaned. “She will never bear it in the world.
She is as frail as a flower. His conduct has brought her within a
hair's-breadth of the grave more than once, and nothing under high
heaven could save her from this. It's awful, awful!”
“I know it's bad, but we've got to save him, Mr. Dwight. You can't have
your own son--”
“Have him _what?_” Dwight rose, swaying from side to side, and stood
facing the lawyer.
“Well, you can't have him sent to jail for murder; you can't have
him--found guilty and publicly executed. The law is a ticklish business.
Absolutely innocent men have been hanged time after time. I tell you
this concealment of the thing, and Carson's hot fury at Willis and
the remarks he has made here and there about him--the fact that he was
armed--that there were no witnesses to the duel--that he allowed the
erroneous verdict of the coroner's jury to go on record--all these
things, with a scoundrel like Wiggin in the background at deadly work to
thwart us and pull Carson out of his track, are very, very serious. It
is the most serious job I ever tackled in the courts, but I'm going to
put it through or, as God is my judge, Mr. Dwight, I'll throw up the
law.”
Tears were now flowing freely from the old merchant's eyes and,
unhindered, dripped from his face to the ground. Taking Garner's hand
he grasped it firmly, and as he wrung it he sobbed: “Save my boy, Billy,
and I'll never let you want for means as long as you live. He's all I've
got, and I'm prouder of him than I ever let folks know. I've made a lot
of fuss over some things he's done, but through it all I was proud of
him, proud of him because he saw deeper into right than I did. Even this
nigger question--I talked against that a lot, because I thought it
would pull him down, but when I heard how he got you all together in
Blackburn's store that night and persuaded you to save old Linda's
boy--when I learned of that and heard the old woman's cries of joy, and
saw the far-reaching effects of what Carson was standing for, I was so
proud and thankful that I sneaked off to my room and cried--cried like a
child; and now upon it all, as his reward, comes this thing. Oh, Billy,
save him! Don't crush the poor boy's spirit. I've always wanted to aid
you in some substantial way for your interest in him, and I'm going to
do it this time.”
“I hope we can squash the thing in justice court in the morning, Mr.
Dwight,” Garner said, confidently. “The chief thing is for you to keep
it all from your wife until then, anyway. I can't do a thing with Carson
till his mind is at ease over her. He worships the ground she walks on,
Mr. Dwight, and if it hadn't been for that he would have been out of
this trouble long ago, for I'm sure a plain statement of the matter
immediately after it happened would have cleared him without any
trouble. In his desire to spare his mother he has complicated the case,
that's all.”
“Oh, I can keep it from his mother that long easy enough,” said Dwight.
“I'll go home now and see to it. Pull my boy through this, Billy. If you
have to draw on me for every cent I've got, pull him through. I'm going
to treat him different in the future-. If he can get out of this I
believe he will be elected and make a great man.”
An hour later Garner hurried back to the office.
“Everything is in fine shape!” he chuckled, as he threw off his coat
and fell to work at his desk. “Squire Felton has fixed the hearing for
to-morrow morning at eleven and Pole Baker has gone on the fastest horse
in the livery-stable to secure witnesses for our side. He says he can
find them galore in the mountains, and your father is as solid as a
stone wall. He fell all in a tumble at first, but braced up, said some
beautiful things about you, and went home to see that your mother's ears
are closed.
“I saw the sheriff, too. What do you think? When I told him the facts,
and said that you were ready to give yourself up, he almost cried.
Braider's a trump. He said that the law gave him the right to let you go
on your own recognizance, and that before he'd arrest you and put you in
a common jail he'd have his arms and legs cut off. He said, knowing
your heart as he knew it, he'd let you go all the way to Canada without
stopping you, and that if you were bound over on this charge he'd throw
up his job rather than arrest you. He told me he'd been looking for
it--that he got wind of it two days ago, and would have been in to see
you about it if he hadn't been afraid you'd misunderstand his coming
at such a time. He put a flea in my ear, too. He said we must beware of
Wiggin. He has an idea that Wiggin has been on to this for sometime and
may have a dangerous dagger up his sleeve. The district-attorney is out
of town to-day but will be back to-night. He's as straight as a die and
will act fair. I will see him the first thing in the morning. Now, you
brace up. Leave everything to me. You are as good a lawyer as I am, but
you are too nervous and worried about your mother to act on your best
judgment.”
At this juncture the colored gardener from Dwight's came in with a note
directed to Garner. Garner opened it and read it while Carson stood
looking on. It ran: _“Dear Billy,--Everything is all right at this end,
and will remain so, at least till after the hearing to-morrow. I enclose
my check for ten thousand dollars as a retaining fee. I always intended
to give you a little start, and I hope this will help you materially.
Save my boy. Save him, Billy. For God's sake pull him through; don't let
this thing crush his spirit. He's got a great and a useful future before
him if only we can pull him through this.”_
Carson read the note through a blur and turned away. He was standing
alone in the dreary little consultation-room a few minutes later, when
Garner came to him, old Dwight's check fluttering in his hands.
“Your dad's the right sort,” he said, his eyes gleaming with the infant
fires of avarice. “One only has to know how to understand him. The
size of this check is out of all reason, but if I can do what he wishes
to-morrow, I'll not only accept it, but I'll put it to a glorious use.
Carson, there is a young woman in this town whom I'll ask to marry me,
and I'll buy a home with this to start life on.”
“Ida Tarpley?” said Carson.
“She's the one,” Garner said, with a bare touch of rising color. “I
think she would take me, from a little remark she dropped, and it was
through you that I found her.”
“Through me?” Dwight said.
“Yes, it was in talking of your ups and downs that I first saw into
her wonderfully sweet and sympathetic nature. Carson, if you get your
walking-papers in the morning, I won't wait ten minutes before I pop
the question. The lack of means was the only thing that kept me from
proposing the last time I saw her.”