Deputy Jenney was a big man. In his stocking feet he stood a fraction
more than six feet and two inches, but he possessed more breadth than
even that height entitled him to. He was so broad that, if you saw him
alone, with no ordinary individual beside him for comparison, he gave
the impression of being short and squat. His weight was nearer three
hundred than two hundred pounds. He was not fat.
Most big men are hard to provoke. It is rarely you find a giant who
uses his size as a constant threat. Such men are tolerant of their
smaller fellows, slow to anger, not given to bullying and meanness.
Deputy Jenney was a mean big man. He was a blusterer, and it was a
joy to him to use his fists. You never knew where you stood with
Deputy Jenney, nor what unpleasant turn his peculiar mind might give
to conversation or circumstance. He was easily affronted, not overly
intelligent, and in his mind was room for no more than a single idea
at a time. He was vain of his size and strength, and his chief delight
was in exhibiting it, preferably in battle. So much for Deputy Jenney’s
outstanding characteristic.
As he left Abner Fownes’s office his humor was unpleasant. It was
unpleasant for two reasons, first and foremost because he was afraid of
Abner, and it enraged him to be made afraid of anybody. Second, he had
been held up to ridicule in the _Free Press_ and he could not endure
ridicule. So the deputy required a victim, and Evan Bartholomew Pell
seemed to have selected himself for the rôle. If Jenney comprehended
the desires of Abner Fownes--and he fancied he did in this case--he
had been directed to do what he could to induce Evan to absent himself
permanently from Gibeon.
He walked down the street fanning himself into a rage--which was no
difficult matter. His rages were very much like the teams which draw
fire engines--always ready for business; trained to leap from their
stalls and to stand under the suspended harness.... It was the noon
hour, and as he arrived at the door of the _Free Press_ office it was
Evan Pell’s unpleasant fortune to be coming out to luncheon. Deputy
Jenney roared at him.
“Hey, you!” he bellowed.
Evan paused and peered up at the big man through his round spectacles,
a calm, self-sufficient, unemotional little figure of a man. The word
little is used in comparison to Deputy Jenney, for the professor was
not undersized.
“Were you speaking to me?” he asked.
“You’re the skunk that wrote that piece about me,” shouted Deputy
Jenney.
“I certainly wrote an article in which you were mentioned,” said Evan,
who, apparently, had not the least idea he stood in imminent danger of
destruction.
“I’ll teach ye, confound ye!... I’ll show ye how to git free with
folkses’ names.” Here the deputy applied with generous tongue a number
of descriptive epithets. “When I git through with you,” he continued,
“you won’t waggle a pen for a day or two.” And then, quite without
warning the professor to make ready for battle, the deputy swung his
great arm, with an enormous open hand flailing at its extremity, and
slapped Evan just under his left ear. Evan left the place on which
he had been standing suddenly and completely, bringing up in the
road a dozen feet away dazed, astounded, feeling as if something had
fallen upon him from a great height. It was his first experience with
physical violence. Never before had a man struck him. His sensations
were conflicting--when his head cleared sufficiently to enable him to
perceive sensations. He had been struck and knocked down! He, Evan
Bartholomew Pell, whose life was organized on a plane high above street
brawls, had been slapped on the jaw publicly, had been tumbled head
over heels ignominiously!
He sat up dizzily and raised his hand to his eyes as if to assure
himself his spectacles were in place. They were not. He stared up at
Deputy Jenney with vague bewilderment, and Deputy Jenney laughed at him.
Then Evan lost track of events temporarily. Something went wrong with
his highly trained reasoning faculties; in short, these faculties
ceased to function. He sprang to his feet, wholly forgetful of his
spectacles, and leaped upon Deputy Jenney, uttering a cry of rage.
Now Evan had not the least idea what was needful to be done by a man
who went into battle; he lost sight of the fact that a man of his
stature could not reasonably expect to make satisfactory progress in
tearing apart a man of Jenney’s proportions. Of one thing alone he was
conscious, and that was a desire to strew the deputy about the road in
fragments.
Some one who saw the fracas described it later, and his phrase is worth
retaining. “The professor,” said this historian, “jest kind of b’iled
up over Jenney.”
That is what Evan did. He boiled up over the big man, inchoate,
bubbling arms and legs, striking, kicking. Deputy Jenney was surprised,
but delighted. He pushed Evan off with a huge hand and flailed him
a second time under the ear. Evan repeated his previous gymnastics.
This time he picked himself up more quickly. His head was clear now.
The wild rage which had possessed him was gone. But there remained
something he had never experienced before--a cold intent to kill!
He sprang upon the deputy again, not blindly this time, but with such
effect as a wholly inexperienced man could muster. He even succeeded
in striking Jenney before he was sent whirling to a distance again....
Now, your ordinary citizen would have known it was high time to
bring the matter to a discreet conclusion, but Evan came to no such
realization. He knew only one thing, that he must somehow batter and
trample this huge animal until he begged for mercy....
At this instant Carmel Lee issued from the office, and stood petrified
as she saw the deputy knock Evan down for the third time, and then,
instead of screaming or running for help or of doing any of those
things which one would have expected of a woman, she remained
fascinated, watching the brutal spectacle. She was not indifferent
to its brutality, not willing Evan should be beaten to a pulp, but
nevertheless she stood, and nothing could have dragged her away. It was
Evan who fascinated her--something about the professor gripped and held
her breathless.
She saw him get slowly to his feet, brush his trousers, blink calmly
at the deputy as at some rather surprising phenomenon, and then, with
the air of a man studiously intent upon some scientific process, spring
upon the big man for the third time. Carmel could see the professor was
not in a rage; she could see he was not frightened; she could see he
was moved by cold, grim intention alone.... The deputy was unused to
such proceedings. Generally when he knocked a man down that man laid
quietly on his back and begged for mercy. There was no sign of begging
for mercy in Evan Pell. Hitherto Jenney had used the flat of his hand
as being, in his judgment, a sufficient weapon for the destruction of
Evan Pell. Now, for the first time, he used his fist. The professor
swarmed upon him so like a wildcat that Jenney was unable to deliver
the sort of blow on the exact spot intended. The blow glanced off
Evan’s skull and the young man seized Jenney’s throat with both hands.
Jenney tore him loose and hurled him away. Again Pell came at him,
this time to be knocked flat and bleeding. He arose slowly, swaying
on his feet, to rush again. Carmel stood with gripped fists, scarcely
breathing, unable to move or to speak. The sight was not pleasant.
Again and again the big man knocked down the little man, but on each
occasion the little man, more and more slowly, more and more blindly,
got to his feet and fell upon his antagonist. He was all but blind; his
legs wabbled under him, he staggered, but always he returned to his
objective. That he was not rendered unconscious was amazing. He uttered
no sound. His battered lips were parted and his clean, white, even
teeth showed through.... The deputy was beginning to feel nonplused....
He knocked Evan down again. For an instant the young man lay still
upon his back. Presently he moved, rolled upon his face, struggled to
his hands and knees, and, by the power of his will, compelled himself
to stand erect. He wavered. Then he took a tottering step forward and
another, always toward Jenney. His head rolled, but he came on. Jenney
watched him vindictively, his hands at his sides. Pell came closer,
lifted his right fist as if its weight were more than his muscles
could lift, and pushed it into the deputy’s face. It was not a blow,
but there was the intention of a blow, unquenchable intention.... The
deputy stepped back and struck again. No more was necessary. Evan Pell
could not rise, though after a few seconds he tried to do so. But even
then the intention which resided in him was unquenched.... On hands and
knees he crawled back toward Deputy Jenney--crawled, struggled to his
enemy--only to sink upon his face at the big man’s feet, motionless,
powerless, unconscious.
Jenney pushed him with his foot. “There,” he said, a trifle
uncertainly, “I guess that’ll do fer you.... And that’s what you git
every time we meet. Remember that. Every time we meet.”
Carmel seemed to be released now from the enchantment which had held
her motionless. She had seen a thing, a thing she could never forget.
She had seen a thing called physical courage, and a higher thing called
moral courage. That is what had held her, fascinated her.... It had
been grim, terrible, but wonderful. Every time she saw Evan return to
his futile attack she knew she was seeing the functioning of a thing
wholly admirable.
“I never see sich grit,” she heard a bystander say, and with the dictum
she agreed. It had been pure grit, the possession of the quality of
indomitability.... And this was the man she had looked down upon,
patronized!... This possession had been hidden within him, and even he
had not dreamed of its presence. She caught her breath....
In an instant she was bending over Evan, lifting his head, wiping his
lips with her handkerchief. She looked up in Deputy Jenney’s eyes, and
her own eyes blazed.
“You coward!... You unspeakable coward!” she said.
The deputy shuffled on his feet. “He got what was comin’ to him....
He’ll git it ag’in every time I see him. I’ll drive him out of this
here town.”
“No,” said Carmel--and she knew she was speaking the truth--“you won’t
drive him out of town. You can kill him, but you can’t drive him out of
town.”
The deputy shrugged his shoulders and slouched away. He was glad to go
away. Something had deprived him of the enjoyment he anticipated from
this event. He had a strange feeling that he had not come off victor in
spite of the fact that his antagonist lay motionless at his feet....
Scowls and mutterings followed him, but no man dared lift his hand.
Evan struggled to lift his head. Through battered eyes he looked at the
crowd packed close about him.
“Er--tell this crowd to disperse,” he said.
“Can you walk?”
“Of course,” he said in his old, dry tone--somewhat shaky, but
recognizable.
“Let me help you into the office.”
He would have none of it. “I fancy I can walk without assistance,” he
said, and, declining her touch, he made his way through the crowd and
into the office, where he sunk into a chair. Here he remained erect,
though Carmel could see it was nothing but his will which prevented
him from allowing his head to sink upon the table. She touched his arm.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I--I want to apologize for--for things I have
said to you.”
He looked at her in his old manner, rather superciliously. “Oh,
doubtless you were right,” he said. “I--er--do not seem to be a success
as a--pugilist.”
“You were----”
“If you please,” he said, holding up a hand which he strove to keep
from shaking. “If you will be so good as to go to luncheon.”
“But----”
“If you get pleasure out of seeing me like this!” he said with
acerbity, and she, seeing how his pride was wounded, how he was shaken
by this new experience, and understanding very vaguely something of the
emotions which must be seething within him, turned away and left him
alone....
When Carmel returned to the office Evan Pell was not there, nor did she
see him until the following day.
That evening, after her supper, she walked. She could not remain in
her room to read, nor go to the office to work. She was lonesome,
discouraged, frightened. The events of the day had upset her until she
seethed.... Motion was necessary. Only in rapid exercise could she find
the anodyne necessary to quiet the jangling of her nerves. The evening
was fine, lighted by a summer moon which touched the mountains with
magic and transformed the forest into a glowing mystery of silver. She
did not walk to think, but as the distance unrolled between her feet
and the disturbed nerves became quiescent, she did think.
For the first time she considered Evan Bartholomew Pell as a human
being. Never before had he been human to her, but a crackling,
parchment creature, not subject to joys and sorrows, not adaptable
to friendships and social relations. She had pictured him carelessly
as an entity to himself, unrelated to the world which moved about
him, and loved and hated and coveted and covered itself with a mantle
of charity. He had aroused her sympathy by his helplessness and his
incapacity--a rather contemptuous sympathy.... Her contempt was gone,
never to return. She speculated upon the possible workings of his mind;
what was to become of him; why he was as he was. He became a human
possibility in her mind, capable of _something_. She saw how there
resided in him, in spite of his wasted years, in spite of the incubus
of precocity which had ridden him from childhood, the spirit of which
men are created.... She wondered if he were capable of breaking through
the crust and of emerging such a man as the world might admire.... She
doubted it. The crust was so thick and so hard.
Of one thing she was certain--never again could she sneer at him or
treat him with supercilious superiority, for, whatever his patent
defects, she had been compelled to recognize that the foundations
of him were admirable.... She vowed, in her impulsive way, to make
amends. She went even farther, as is the way with girls both impulsive
and calculating--she determined to remake Evan Pell, to remodel him
along lines of her own designing.... Women love to renovate men; it
is, perhaps, the major side line to the primary business of their
lives--and God knows what that may be!
Carmel paid scant attention to the road she followed. It was a pleasant
road, a silvery-bright road. It contented her and seemed a road which
must lead to some desirable destination. The destination was vague and
distant; she did not hope to reach it, but it amused and stirred her to
think there must be such a terminal.
She walked away from Gibeon for an hour before she realized that every
step she took meant two steps, one coming and one returning. She was
unconscious of loneliness, nor did she feel any apprehension of the
silent woods. The spot where she paused was lovely with cold light
and warm shadows and she looked about for a place to sit and rest a
moment before her return journey. She stepped from the roadside and
seated herself upon a fallen, rotting log, partially screened from the
thoroughfare by clump growth of young spruce.
Hardly had she taken her seat when a small automobile roared around a
bend and jounced and rattled toward Gibeon. It was going at high speed.
On the front seat she saw two male figures, but so uncertain was the
light and so rapid the passage that she was unable to identify them.
She started to her feet to stare after the car, when, to her amazement,
it came to a skidding stop, with screaming of brakes, a scant hundred
yards beyond her. It maneuvered a moment, and then, departing from the
road, groaning through the dry ditch that bordered it, the car forced
its way into the woods where there was no road at all.
Carmel was intrigued by this eccentric behavior. Automobiles, as she
knew them, did not habitually leave excellent roads to roam about in a
trackless forest. The cars she knew were creatures of habit, adhering
to the beaten paths of hurrying civilization. She could not imagine
one adventuring on its own, and most especially she could not conceive
of one rambling about in the woods. She had a feeling that it was not
right for one to do so--which was natural to her as a human being, for
all human beings have a firm belief that anything not sanctioned by
immemorial custom must be evil. New paths lead inevitably to damnation.
She was startled, but not frightened. Whatever was going on here could
not threaten her, for she knew herself to have been unseen; appreciated
how easy it would be to remain in concealment.
Presently she heard the sound of axes.... She crouched and
waited--possibly for fifteen minutes. At the end of that time the car
pushed its rump awkwardly out of the woods again, swung on to the road,
and, stirring a sudden cloud of dust, sped toward Gibeon.... It was
only then she realized the car had been traveling without lights.
She waited. The sound of the automobile vanished in the distance and
she judged it safe to investigate. Somewhat gingerly she emerged
upon the road and walked toward the spot where the car had entered
the woods. The wheel tracks were plainly to be seen, and she followed
them inward. It was but a step, perhaps fifty yards. At the end there
was nothing but a pile of freshly cut sprucelings. Had the season
been other than summer, she would have concluded some one was cutting
Christmas trees for the market--but one did not cut Christmas trees in
July! But why were the little spruces cut? There must be a reason. She
stirred them with her foot. Then, with impulsive resolution, she began
flinging them aside.
Underneath she came upon a square of canvas--a cover--and concealed
by this the last thing in the world she would have expected to come
upon.... Bottles and bottles and bottles, carefully laid and piled.
Instantly she knew, even before she lifted a bottle and read the label
which identified it as whisky of foreign distillage, she had witnessed
one step in a whisky smuggler’s progress; had surprised a _cache_ of
liquor which had evaded the inspectors at the border, a few miles away.
She did not count the bottles, but she estimated their number--upward
of a hundred!
She was frightened. How it came about, by what process of mental
cross-reference, she could not have said, but the one thing obtruding
upon her consciousness was the story of the disappearance of Sheriff
Churchill! Had he come upon such a hoard? Had his discovery become
known to the malefactors? Did that, perhaps, explain his inexplicable
absence?
Carmel’s impulse was to run, to absent herself from that spot with
all possible celerity. She started, halted, returned. There could be
no danger now, she argued with herself, and there might be some clew,
something indicative of the identity of the men she saw in the car. If
there were, it was her duty as proprietor of the _Free Press_ to come
into possession of that information.
Fortune was with her. In the interstices of the bottles her groping
hand came upon something small and hard. She held it in the moonlight.
It was a match box made from a brass shotgun shell.... Without pausing
to examine it, she slipped it securely into her waist, then--and her
reason for doing so was not plain to her--she helped herself to a
bottle of liquor, wrapped it in the light sweater she carried, and
turned her face toward Gibeon.