for the very important information told so luminously in his letter. The
solid and respectable portion of the party had hoped much from the
presence of Mr. Heathcote, but as he had yielded to the influence of
another, instead of exerting his own, it would be necessary to take
additional action later. Meanwhile he requested Mr. Churchill to keep
him accurately and promptly informed of everything, and Churchill at
once telegraphed: "Despatch received. Will be glad to comply with your
request."
Then he congratulated himself, and felt good, his complacent demeanor
forming a contrast to that of several others in the party. The latter
were "King" Plummer, Sylvia Morgan, and John Harley, all of whom were
unhappy.
Harley was troubled by his conscience, and he could not do anything to
keep it from sticking those little pins into him. Sylvia Morgan, despite
herself, drew him on, not the less because his first feeling towards her
had been one of hostility. She had a piquant touch, a manner full of
unconscious allurement--the radiation of a pure soul, though it
was--that he had never seen in any other woman, and the harder he fought
against it, the more surely it conquered him. He took from his valise a
copy of that old Chicago newspaper, with her picture on the front page,
and wondered how he could have intimated that she was the cause of its
being there. As he knew her better, he knew that she could not have done
it, and he knew, too, that she would have scornfully resented any
insinuation of having done so by refusing to deny it.
The "King" was unhappy, too, in his way, and that was very bad indeed
for him. He had tried an effusive gallantry, and it did not seem to
succeed any better than obedience to his own impulses--on the whole,
rather worse; and now, not knowing what else to do, he sulked. It was
not any sly sulking, but genuine, open sulking in his large, Western
way, thus leaving it apparent to all that the great "King" Plummer was
sad. And that meant much to the party, because in a sense it was now
personally conducted by him. In his joyous mood, which was his usual
mood until the present, he had a large and pervasive personality that
was a wonderful help to travel and social intercourse. They missed his
timely, if now and then a trifle rough, jests, his vast knowledge of the
mountains, which had some good story of every town to which they came,
and his infinite zest and humor, which also communicated more zest and
humor to every one with him. It was a grievous day for them all when
"King" Plummer began to mourn. More than one guessed the cause, but
wisely they refrained from any attempt to remove it. They could do
nothing but endure the gloom in silence, until the clouds passed, as
they hoped they would pass.
The candidate, too, was troubled, and sought the privacy of the special
car's drawing-room more than usual. Sylvia Morgan had given him a hint
that attacks upon him from a certain source were likely to be renewed,
and, moreover, would increase in virulence. He soon found that she was
right, as the copies of the _Monitor_ that they now obtained were
frankly cynical and unbelieving. All of its despatches from the West,
Churchill's as well as others, were depreciatory. The candidate was
invariably made to appear in a bad light--which is an easy matter to
do, in any case, without sacrifice of the truth--that is, verbally, only
the spirit being changed--and the editor reinforced them with strong
criticisms, in which quotations from English writers and a French phrase
now and then were freely employed. The whole burden of it was, "We
support this candidate; but, oh, how hard it is for us to do it, how
badly we feel about it, and how much easier it would be for us to
support any other man!" It also printed many contributions from readers,
in all of which the contributors spoke of themselves as belonging by
nature and cultivation to the select few, "the saving remnant," who
really knew what was good for the country. Here much latitude of
expression was allowed, as the paper was not directly responsible for
what these gentlemen said. They wrote of the way in which the dignity of
a great party had been destroyed by the uncouth and talkative Westerner
who had been lucky enough to secure the nomination. They felt that they
had been shamed in the face of the world, and more than once asked the
burning and painful question, "What will Europe say?" They asked, also,
if it were yet too late to amend the error, and they threw forth the
suggestion that the intelligent and cultured minority within the party
might refrain from voting, when election day came, or, in a pinch, might
vote for the other man.
These communications were signed, sometimes, with Latin names, and
sometimes with names in modern English, but always they indicated a
certain sense of superiority and of detachment from the crowd on the
part of the signers.
The annoyance of the candidate increased as he read copies of the
_Monitor_, which were sent to him in numbers. He knew that the paper was
the chief spokesman of an influential minority within the party, and
the divergence between the majority and the minority was already
manifest. It was evident, too, that it was bound to become greater, and
that was why the candidate was troubled. He wished to become President;
it was his great desire, and he did not seek to conceal it; he
considered it a legitimate, a noble ambition, one that any American had
a right to have, and he was in the first flush of his great powers, when
such a position would appeal most to a strong man. Now, even when the
fight, with a united party, was desperate at best, he foresaw a
defection, and hot wrath rose up in his veins against Goodnight, the
_Monitor_, and all their following.
But the worst of the whole position to a man of Grayson's open and
direct temperament was the necessity to keep silent, even to dissemble,
or, at least, to do that which seemed to him very near to dissembling.
Although he was under so fierce a fire, he would not allow any one to
find fault with Churchill for his despatches; and this was not always
easy to do, because many of the local politicians, who were on the train
from time to time, would grow hot at sight of the criticisms, and want
to attack the writer. But Jimmy Grayson always interfered, and reminded
them that it was the right of the press to speak so if it wished.
Churchill still wondered, why he was not a martyr, and wasted his
regrets. Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia maintained an eloquent silence.
Meanwhile, an event destined to give Churchill and the _Monitor_ a yet
greater shock was approaching.
XIII
THE THIRD DEGREE
The candidate and his company were due one night at Grayville, a brisk
Colorado town, dwelling snugly in the shadow of high mountains and
hopeful of a brilliant future, based upon the mines within its limits
and the great pastoral country beyond, as any of its inhabitants, asked
or unasked, would readily have told you. Hence there was joy in the
train, from Jimmy Grayson down, because the next day was to be Sunday, a
period of rest, no speeches to be made, nothing to write, but just rest,
sleeping, eating, idling, bathing, talking--whatever one chose to do.
Only those who have been on arduous campaigns can appreciate the luxury
of such a day now and then, cutting like a sweep of green grass across
the long and dusty road.
There was also quite a little group of women on the train, the wives of
several Colorado political leaders having joined Sylvia and Mrs. Grayson
for a while, and they, too, looked forward to a day of rest and the
restoration of their toilets.
"They tell me that Grayville has one of the best hotels in the
mountains," said Barton to Harley, his brother correspondent. "That you
can get a dinner in a dozen courses, if you want it, and every course
good; that it has real porcelain-lined bath-tubs, and beds sure to cure
the worst case of insomnia on earth. Do you think this improbable, this
extravagant but most fascinating tale can be true, Harley?"
"I live in hope," replied Harley.
"Jimmy Grayson has been here before," interrupted Hobart, "and he says
it's true, every word of it; if Jimmy Grayson vouches for a thing, that
settles it; and here is a copy of the Grayville _Argus_; it has to be a
pretty good town that can publish as smart a daily as this."
He handed a neat sheet to Barton, who laughed.
"There speaks the great detective," he said. "You know, Harley, how
Hobart is always arguing from the effect back to the cause."
Hobart, in fact, was not a political writer, but a "murder mystery" man,
and the best of his kind in New York, but the regular staff
correspondent of his paper, the _Leader_, being ill, he had been sent in
his place. He was a Harvard graduate and a gentleman with a taste for
poetry, but he had a peculiar mind, upon which a murder mystery acted as
an irritant--he could not rest until he had solved it--and his paper
always put him on the great cases, such as those in which a vast
metropolis like New York abounds. Now he was restless and discontented;
the tour seemed to him the mere reporting of speeches and obvious
incidents that everybody saw; there was nothing to unravel, nothing that
called for the keen edge of a fine intellect.
"Grayville, with all its advantages as a place of rest, is sure to be
like the other mountain towns," he said, somewhat sourly--"the same
houses, the same streets, the same people, I might almost say the same
mountains. There will be nothing unusual, nothing out of the way."
Harley had taken the paper from Barton's hands and was reading it.
"At any rate, if Grayville is not unusual, it is to have an unusual
time," he interrupted.
"How so?"
"It is to hear Jimmy Grayson speak Monday, and it is going to hang a man
Tuesday. See, the two events get equal advance space, two columns each,
on the front page."
He handed the paper to Hobart, who looked at it a little while and then
dropped it with an air of increasing discontent.
"That may mean something to the natives," he said; "it may be an
indication to them that their place is becoming important--a metropolis
in which things happen--but it is nothing to me. This hanging case is
stale and commonplace; it is perfectly clear; a young fellow named Boyd
is to be hanged for killing his partner, another miner; no doubt about
his guilt, plenty of witnesses against him, his own denial weak and
halting--in fact, half a confession; jury out only five minutes; whole
thing as bald and flat as this plain through which we are running."
He tapped with his finger on the dusty car-window, and his expression
was so gloomy that the others could not restrain a laugh.
"Cheer up, old man," said Barton. "Four more hours and we are in
Grayville; just think of that wonderful hotel, with its more wonderful
beds and its yet more wonderful kitchen."
The hotel was all that they either expected or hoped, and the dawn
brought a beautiful Sunday, disclosing a pretty little frontier city
with its green, irrigated valley on one side and the brown mountains,
like a protecting wall, on the other. Harley slept late, and after
breakfast came out upon the veranda to enjoy the luxury of a
rocking-chair, with the soft October air around him and the majesty of
the mountains before him. He hoped to find Sylvia there, but neither she
nor any of the ladies was present. Instead, there was a persistent,
inquiring spirit abroad which would not let him rest, and this spirit
belonged to Hobart, the "mystery" man.
Harley had not been enjoying the swinging ease of the rocking-chair five
minutes before Hobart, the light of interest in his eyes, pounced upon
him.
"Harley, old fellow," he exclaimed, "this is the first place we've
struck in which Jimmy Grayson is not the overwhelming attraction."
"The hanging, I suppose," said Harley, carelessly.
"Of course. What else could there be? It occurred to me last night, when
I was reading the paper, that I might scare up a feature or two in the
case, and I was out of my bed early this morning to try. It was a
forlorn hope, I'll admit, but anything was better than nothing, and I've
had my reward. I've had my reward, old fellow!"
He chuckled outright in his glee. Harley smiled. Hobart always
interested and amused him. The instinctive way in which he unfailingly
rose to a "case" showed his natural genius for that sort of thing.
"I haven't seen Boyd yet," continued Hobart, excitedly, "but I've found
out this much already--there are people in Grayville who believe Boyd
innocent. It is true that he and Wofford--the murdered man--had been
quarrelling in Grayville, and Boyd was taken at the shanty with the
blood-stained knife in his hand; but that doesn't settle it."
Harley could not restrain an incredulous laugh. "It seems to me those
two circumstances, omitting the other proof, are pretty convincing," he
said.
Hobart flushed. "You just wait until I finish," he said, somewhat
defiantly. "Now Boyd, as I have learned, was a good-hearted, generous
young fellow. The quarrel amounted to very little, and probably had been
patched up before they reached their shack."
"That is a view which the jury evidently could not take."
"Juries are often wooden-headed."
"Of course--in the eyes of superior people."
"Now don't you try to be satirical--it's not your specialty. I mean to
finish the tale. If you read the paper, you will recall that the shanty
where the murder occurred was only a short distance from the
mountain-road, and there were three witnesses--Bill Metzger, a dissolute
cowboy who was passing, and who, attracted by Wofford's death-cry, ran
to the cabin and found Boyd, blood-stained knife in hand, bending over
the murdered man; Ed Thorpe, a tramp miner, who heard the same cry and
who came up two or three minutes later; and, finally, Tim Williams, a
town idler, who was on the mountain-side, hunting. The other two heard
him fire his gun a few hundred yards away, and called to him. When he
arrived, Boyd was still dazed and muttering to himself, as if
overpowered by the horror of his crime."
"If that isn't conclusive, then nothing is," said Harley, decisively.
"It is not conclusive; there was no real motive for Boyd to do such a
thing."
"To whom did the knife belong?"
"It was a long bread-knife that the two used at the cabin."
"There you are! Proof on proof!"
"Now, you keep silent, Harley, and come with me, like a good fellow, and
see Boyd in the jail. If you don't, I swear I'll pester the life out of
you for a week."
Harley rose reluctantly, as he knew that Hobart would keep his word. He
believed it the idlest of errands, but the jail was only a short
distance from them, and the business would not take long. On the way
Hobart talked to him about the three witnesses. Metzger, the cowboy, on
the day of the murder, had been riding in from a ranch farther down the
valley; the other two had been about the town until a short time before
the departure of Boyd and Wofford for their cabin.
They reached the jail, a conspicuous stone building in the centre of the
town, and were shown into the condemned man's cell. The jailer announced
them with the statement:
"Tim, here's two newspaper fellers from the East wants to see you."
The prisoner was lying on a pallet in the corner of his cell, and he
raised himself on his elbow when Harley and Hobart entered.
"You are writers for the papers?" he said.
"Yes, clean from New York; they are with Jimmy Grayson," the jailer
answered for them.
"I don't know as I've got anythin' to say to you," continued the
prisoner. "I 'ain't got no picture to give you, an' if I had one I
wouldn't give it. I don't want my hangin' to be all wrote up in the
papers, with pictures an' things, too, jest to please the people in the
East. If I've got to die, I'd rather do it quiet and peaceful, among the
boys I know. I ain't no free circus."
"We did not come to write you up; it was for another purpose," Harley
hastened to say.
He was surprised at the youth of the prisoner, who obviously was not
over twenty-one, a mere boy, with good features and a look half defiant,
half appealing.
"Well, what did you come for, then?" asked the boy.
Harley was unable to answer this question, and he looked at Hobart as if
to indicate the one who would reply. The "mystery" man did not seek to
evade his responsibility in the least, and promptly said:
"Mr. Boyd, I think you will acquit us of any intention to intrude upon
you. It was the best of motives that brought us to you. I have always
had an interest in cases of this sort, and when I heard of yours in the
train, coming here, I received an impression then which has been
strengthened on my arrival in Grayville. I believe you are innocent."
The boy looked up. A sudden flash of gratitude, almost of hope, appeared
in his eyes.
"I am!" he cried. "God knows I didn't kill Bill Wofford. He wuz my
partner and we wuz like brothers. We did quarrel that mornin'--I don't
deny it--and we both had been liquorin'; but I'd never hev struck him a
blow of any kind, least of all a foul one."
"Was it not true that you were found with the bloody knife in your hand,
standing over his yet warm body?" asked Hobart.
"It's so, but it was somebody else that used the knife. Bill went on
ahead, and when I come into the place I saw him on the floor an' the
knife in 'im. I was struck all a-heap, but I did what anybody else would
'a' done--I pulled the knife out. And then the fellers come in on me. I
was rushed into a trial right away. Of course, I couldn't tell a
straight tale; the horror of it was still in my brain, and the effect
o' the liquor, too. I got all mixed up--but before God, gen'lemen, I
didn't do it."
His tone was strong with sincerity, and his expression was rather that
of grief than remorse. Harley, who had had a long experience with all
kinds of men in all kinds of situations, did not believe that he was
either bad or guilty. Hobart spoke his thoughts aloud.
"I don't think you did it," he said.
"Everybody believes I did," said Boyd, with pathetic resignation, "and I
am to be hanged for it. So what does it matter now?"
"I am going to look for the guilty man," said Hobart, decidedly.
Boyd shook his head and lay back on his pallet. The others, with a few
words of hope, withdrew, and, when they were outside, Harley said:
"Hobart, were you not wrong to sow the seed of hope in that man's mind
when there is no hope?"
"There is hope," replied Hobart; "I have a plan. Don't ask me anything
about it--it's vague yet--but I may work it."
Harley glanced at him, and, seeing that he was intense and eager, with
his mind concentrated upon this single problem, resolved to leave him to
his own course; so he spent part of the day, a wonderful autumn Sunday,
in a rocking-chair on the piazza of the hotel, and another part walking
with Sylvia. He told her of the murder case and Hobart's action, and her
prompt sympathy was aroused.
"Suppose he should really be innocent?" she said. "It would be an awful
thing to hang an innocent man."
"So it would. He certainly does not look like a bad fellow, but you
know that those who are not bad are sometimes guilty. In any event I
fail to see what Hobart can do."
After the walk, which was all too brief, he returned to his
rocking-chair on the piazza, but Grayville, being a small place, he knew
everything that was going on within it, by means of a sort of mental
telepathy that the born correspondent acquires. He knew, for instance,
that Hobart was all the time with one or the other of the three
witnesses--Metzger, Thorpe, or Williams--for the moment the most
important persons in Grayville by reason of their conspicuous connection
with the great case.
When Hobart returned, the edge of the sun was behind the highest
mountains; but he took no notice of Harley, walking past him without a
word and burying himself somewhere in the interior of the hotel. Harley
learned subsequently that he went directly to Jimmy Grayson's room, and
remained there at least half an hour, in close conference with the
candidate himself.
The next day was a break in the great campaign. Owing to train
connections, which are not trifles in the Far West, it was necessary, in
order to complete the schedule, to spend an idle day at some place, and
Grayville had been selected as the most comfortable and therefore the
most suitable. And so the luxurious rest of the group was continued for
twenty-four hours for all--save Hobart.
Harley had never before seen the "mystery" man so eager and so full of
suppressed excitement. He frequently passed his comrades, but he rarely
spoke to them, or even noticed them; his mind was concentrated now upon
a great affair in which they would be of no avail. Harley learned,
however, that he was still much in the company of the three witnesses,
although he asked him no questions. Late in the afternoon he saw him
alone and walking rapidly towards the hotel. It seemed to Harley that
Hobart's head was borne somewhat high and in a manner exultantly, as if
he were overcoming obstacles, and he was about to ask him again in
regard to his progress, but Hobart once more sped by without a word and
went into the hotel. Harley learned later that he held a secret
conference with Jimmy Grayson.
In the evening everybody went to the opera-house to hear the candidate,
but on the way Hobart said, casually, to Harley: "Old man, I don't think
I'll sit in front to-night. I wish you would let me have your notes
afterwards." "Of course," replied Harley, as he passed down the aisle
and found his chair at the correspondents' table on the stage.
There Harley watched the fine Western audience come into the theatre and
find seats, with some noise but no disorder, a noise merely of men
calling each other by name, and commenting in advance on what Jimmy
Grayson would say. The other correspondents entered one by one--all
except Hobart, and took their seats on the stage. Sylvia and Mrs.
Grayson were with some ladies in a box. Harley looked for Hobart, and
two or three times he saw him near the main entrance of the building.
Once he was talking with a brown and longish-haired youth, and Harley,
by casual inquiry, learned that it was Metzger, the cowboy. A man not
greatly different in appearance, to whom Hobart spoke occasionally, was
Thorpe, the tramp miner, and yet another, a tall fellow with a bulging
underlip, Harley learned, was Williams, the third witness.
Evidently the witnesses would attend Jimmy Grayson's meeting, which was
natural, however, as every body in Grayville was sure to come, and
Harley also surmised that Hobart had taken upon himself the task of
instructing them as to the methods, the manner, and the greatness of the
candidate. He had done such a thing himself, upon occasion, the Western
interest in Jimmy Grayson being so great that often appeals were made to
the correspondents for information about him more detailed than the
newspapers gave.
Harley studied the faces of the three witnesses as attentively as the
distance and the light would admit, but they remained near the door,
evidently intending to stand there, back to the wall, a plan sometimes
adopted by those who may wish to slip out quietly before a speech is
finished. Harley, the trained observer, saw that Hobart, without their
knowledge, was shepherding them as the shepherd gently makes his sheep
converge upon a common spot.
The correspondent could draw no inference from the faces of the three
men, which were all of usual Western types, without anything special to
distinguish them, and his attention turned to the audience. He had
received an intimation that Jimmy Grayson intended to deliver that
evening a speech of unusual edge and weight. He would indict the other
party in the most direct and forcible manner, pointing out that its sins
were moral as well as political, but that a day of reckoning would come,
when those who profited by such evil courses must pay the forfeit; it
was a part of the law of nature, which was also the law of retribution.