I RECKON it’s best for innocence to go boldly in this world. At any
rate, I would have come off better that night if I had not lurked and
prowled. However, I was only obeying very wise dictates of prudence; my
uncle had been sufficiently savage in the harness-room when rebellion
was merely in process of hatching. To meet him after Judge Kingsley
had exploded the bomb--and I was sure that I would be revealed in
the matter--would be like getting in the path of a Bengal tiger with
snap-crackers blistering his tail.
I wasn’t at all certain what I would do after I found out that I
had been exposed to my uncle’s fury; first of all, so I felt, it was
essential to learn what had developed in the horse trade.
So I stole in the gloom around behind the buildings of the village and
retraced my trail up through the judge’s orchard. While I was still some
distance from the mansion I heard considerable of a hullabaloo above
which rose the shrill voice of “Squealing John” Runnels, who was issuing
warnings about “laying a whip on that hoss.” Then there was a racketing
and a splintering and down past me came an outfit which I recognized.
The horse was certainly the brute my uncle had doctored into false
shapeliness; the mane was dangling in shreds where the apple-tree limbs
had raked. Runnels, his woman’s hat hanging on his back, was kneeling
on the bottom of the wagon, both hands full of false hair which he had
reaped from the horse’s tail in effort to check the animal; he had lost
the reins and they were dragging uselessly on the ground.
Not far from me the wagon was flailed against a tree and Mr. Runnels was
violently dislodged; but I judged that he was not injured because, after
rolling over and over on the turf, he rose and ran away with his skirts
gathered around his waist.
It was evident that my uncle’s plot had failed ingloriously.
I could understand the flash of fresh spirit in that moribund horse;
Runnels had shrieked warnings regarding a whip; a lash laid across those
tingling water-blisters must have made that poor old pelter develop a
hankering to outfly Pegasus. He disappeared with fragments of the thills
clattering on his heels.
Then there were immediate and further developments in that orchard.
I thought for a startled moment that it was enchanted ground. White
figures began to pop up here and there and came flocking to me. I found
myself surrounded by the Skokums, wearing the pillowcase masks I had
furnished.
They seemed to think I had some information regarding the runaway or was
concerned in it, but I had no news to give out. One of them brought the
old felt hat with its broken feather.
“I didn’t know there was any woman in these parts who could cuss like
that one did when she went down through the orchard,” said one of the
Sortwell boys. “I reckon that detective is finding mysteries piling in on
him pretty thick.”
“What detective?” I asked.
“The one that Judge Kingsley has been hiding in his house. That
detective was hid in a closet in the office to-day when the judge was
asking questions of us.”
“How do you know he was there?”
“Cigar smoke was coming out of the cracks in the closet door. So
somebody was hid. And since then he has been outdoors and we piped him
off. He followed you home. Didn’t you see him?”
I did remember the strange man who had been loafing along behind me, but
I kept my own counsel. I had a more important matter on my mind.
“I want to know which of you fellows told Judge Kingsley to-day that I
am ringleader of this gang?”
No one answered me. They went on making fun of the detective, and I’ll
admit that it seemed to me that he was putting up a poor job in his
line. My reading had given me a rather exalted idea of detectives, but
a man who smoked behind a closet door while eavesdropping, and through
whose identity those country boys saw straightway, was certainly a
clumsy operator. Therefore, I lost interest in him and persisted in my
own business with them.
“I’m going to overlook your dirty work in setting old Bennie on to me,”
I said. “You may have done it only for a joke, and there’s no telling
what a fool will do when you start him off. But there’s no joke in
blowing on me to Judge Kingsley--and you say there was a detective
listening behind a door. Now own up!”
Nobody volunteered.
“I told him myself that I was in it at first. But when I said I was out
of it he made it plain that some of you are still putting the blame on
me. Whoever has said anything of that kind to him is a sneak.”
No word from any of them.
“And the fellow who won’t speak up to me now, so that we can settle this
thing, is a coward.”
There was no such thing as picking out a guilty face in that crowd; they
were hooded with those pillow-slips. I wasn’t sure which was which; I
couldn’t locate even Ben Pratt in the gang, and he was the special chap
I had in mind as informer.
“I can say this,” stated one of the boys, “that I didn’t mention your
name to the judge, Ross. So there’s no chance for a fight between you
and me. But when you come to twitting about the throwing-down business,
let me remind you that you did the first job in that line; you threw us
all down. And that was after we had turned a trick that saved you and
your uncle good money.”
“But what the rest of you wanted to do was go around in the night
and raise the devil in this town, simply for the sake of mischief. I
wouldn’t do that, and I told you so.”
“But how about a case where we’d be protecting ourselves against
somebody who was doing us dirt?”
“Nothing like that has been put up to me.”
“It’s going to be in about three seconds. You organized this society;
now do something for it. We’re going to coat that detective with
molasses and feathers and ride him out of the village on a rail. We call
on you to boss the job.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Then join in with us and help.”
“No!”
“This isn’t mischief--it’s tackling an enemy. You haven’t got any good
excuse for throwing us down.”
“I’ve got an excuse that suits _me_. I have made up my mind to travel
straight in this town, after this. I’m going to do it. I have my own
good reasons for doing it.”
“Lost your courage, hey?”
“It takes more courage to stand up here and say what I’m saying than to
lead this mob.”
“So _you_ say, but that doesn’t convince _us_. Go home, then, and get
out from underfoot.”
It came to me all of a sudden and with sickening force that it required
more courage to go home and face my uncle than to undertake any other
project which my mind could grasp just then.
I stood stock-still and they began to suspect my motives in sticking
around.
“You won’t head the party, you won’t go along as a member, you won’t get
out of the way,” growled a voice, and I recognized Ben Pratt. “What do
you intend to do--make a holler?”