A TALK WITH JUDGE RILEY
Dr. Wilkes investigated the naked torso of Angus Mackay with skilled
fingers.
"Two ribs cracked," he announced, "and you're lucky at that, young man.
The scalp wound is nothing. The ribs will be all right in a few weeks,
if you give them a chance. Mind, you, Angus, no hard riding, no lifting;
move gently and rest all you can."
"But the fall work--" Angus began. The doctor cut him short.
"Work!" he exploded irritably. "There's that word again. By heaven, you
all say it! It's 'I can't go away, doc, I can't take a holiday, I can't
rest. I've got to work.' Lord knows how many times I've heard it, and
from men who wouldn't work a sick or lame horse on a bet. You'd think
health was the least important thing on earth, something to be fixed up
in a day or two with a Blaud's pill. Work is a fine thing to keep folks
out of mischief, but it isn't the chief end of man, and it isn't a
damned fetich that demands human sacrifice. Who'll do your work when
you're dead?" He glared at Angus ferociously beneath shaggy,
red-and-gray brows.
"Well, I won't worry about that," Angus laughed. "I hope it's a long way
off."
"It missed your head by about an inch yesterday," Wilkes told him.
"There you stand, over six feet, and nearly two hundred pounds of as
fine bone and sinew and flesh and blood as I've ever seen, every organ
of you, as far as I can tell, as sound as clear pine. And you may be
good for seventy years more--or seventy hours. A long way off! Your
horse steps in a hole, or a team bolts and you happen to fall wrong, or
a little drop of blood clots somewhere. And puff! away you go like a
pinch of dust on the trail, which is exactly what you are. A long way
off! Of all the blasted but blessed cocksureness of youth!" And he
grumbled and growled as he strapped up the injured side.
But Angus paid little attention to the doctor's homily. From the
latter's office he went to see Judge Riley who, much to everybody's
surprise, had cut his drinking down if not out, and in consequence was
much busier than of old. Before him Angus laid the puzzle of Faith
Winton's property, Godfrey French's connection therewith, and Braden's
attempt to sell part of it.
"There may be a perfectly good explanation," said the lawyer. "For
instance, there may have been other properties or other transactions
involved. Then as to Braden's attempt to sell to Chetwood, he may have
been acting for French, who may be Winton's executor. In any event, if
half of this land could be sold for as much as was paid for the whole,
nobody but the purchaser would be apt to make subsequent objection."
"But if French paid only about three dollars for the land and split the
difference with somebody, couldn't Miss Winton claim the difference?"
"Undoubtedly. But you have no evidence of that. If you like, I'll search
the title and find out who sold the land and what consideration is
stated in the conveyance to Winton. Drop in some time next week."
Angus waited the week with impatience. Convinced that there had been
crooked work somewhere, he was anxious to get at the facts. Also he
chafed at the comparative inactivity imposed on him by his injured
ribs.
"Well," said the judge, when Angus sought him again, "I haven't found
out very much. But Braden apparently owns this property."
"Braden!" Angus exclaimed.
"Yes, he is the registered owner of a large block of land which seems to
include this. So far as most of the land is concerned, he is the
original grantee. As to the Tetreau land, Tetreau was the original
grantee of that. Five hundred acres was granted to Tetreau, and sold by
him to Braden for an expressed monetary consideration of one thousand
dollars and certain other considerations not specified. When he acquired
that land from Tetreau, Braden then had a compact block, and apparently
he has it still."
"But there must be a deed to Winton."
"If so it isn't registered. Braden can convey and give a good registered
title. There is nothing to show any interest of Winton's. Are you sure
this is the property his daughter meant?"
"From her description, it can't be any other."
"Then probably there is an unregistered conveyance from Braden to
Winton, or to French as the latter's trustee. As to the price paid, it
may have been high, but it does not prove nor even raise the presumption
of fraud. You can't tell the girl your suspicions, when they are mere
suspicions, especially while she is under French's roof."
"I believe both Braden and French are crooks. I never liked Braden, but
up to a little while ago, I thought he was straight. And I always
thought old French was a gentleman."
"So he is."
"Not if he is a crook."
"Nonsense!" the judge returned. "Gentlemen have been pirates, outlaws
and highwaymen. A gentleman may be a blackguard, just as a well-bred dog
may be a sheep-killer, or run wild with wolves. It's one word, not two.
It's a name for a breed, not a descriptive term for qualities such as
honesty, courtesy or the like."
"If a man has those qualities, isn't he a gentleman?"
"No," said the judge, "though he may be something a good deal better.
I'm as democratic as they make 'em, but it is an undoubted fact that
there are strains of men, just as there are strains of animals.
Considered as a strain of mankind, a gentleman is a gentleman, no matter
how big a rascal he is. The Frenches are all gentlemen--that is, all but
Blake."
"Why not Blake, if it is a breed?"
"God knows," the judge replied. "Blake is a full brother to the rest,
but he's not the same breed. He's a throwback to something that crept in
somehow, maybe a century or so ago, when nobody was looking. He has the
body, but not the heart. He is a cur, while the rest are--wolves." He
drummed on his blotter. "In confidence, Angus, I am going to tell you
one or two things: The first is that the Frenches have little or no
money left. They have been going down hill steadily for years. This
horse racing and gambling is not amusement, but their living. Their
ranch is mortgaged for all it will stand, and more. So you see, it's not
likely French could repay the girl, even if we proved he cheated Winton.
"And now for Braden:" He paused for a moment, and his bushy brows drew
down. "If there is one thing I despise," he said with emphasis, "it is a
hypocrite. More repulsive to me than even sordid crime is hypocrisy,
snivelling righteousness, a lip-and-broadcloth service of the Almighty,
the broad phylacteries of the Pharisee. All my life I have hated such
things. And Braden, mark you, is a hypocrite. Outwardly, he is full of
good works. Your father was deceived in him, and I told him so when he
would have made Braden his executor, but I had merely my own opinion.
"Well, when your father died, Braden conceived an ingenious plan to get
hold of the ranch, knowing that it would increase in value very much,
eventually. The first step was to get you children off it, to put
somebody else on, to allow the rent to get into arrears, to let the
place run down a little. With the accumulating interest on the mortgage,
ownership would involve a heavy financial burden. Then a straw man would
have made an offer for the place, d'ye understand me? And to get money
for your education and maintenance Braden would have accepted, and to
keep his skirts clean he would have got a court order approving the
sale. Afterward the straw man would have transferred to Braden. Is that
clear to you?"
Angus nodded, amazed.
"Also absence from the place would have weaned you youngsters away from
it," the judge continued. "When you came to me for advice I went to
Braden and read his mind to him, and his face told me I had read it
aright. Since then he has hated me for knowing him for what he knows
himself to be. So, in course of time, he laid a trap for me with a
pretended client and monies for a certain investment. The idea was that
the man with whom I was to invest the monies was to deny it, and they
thought they had it arranged so that I could not produce evidence of
what had become of it. But they were wrong. I had evidence, and with a
very little more I'd have had a clear case of conspiracy against them.
However, I fell short of that and let it go. But one thing it did for
me: It showed me that I needed a clear head, and it gave me the will to
fight the habit that had a grip on me. So there's information in
confidence for you, Angus. Now Braden and French are working together.
French and his sons get the confidence of young fellows with more money
than experience, steer them to Braden who sells them land, and the
commissions are split. Perhaps that is what happened in the Winton case.
Only we can't prove it."
"No," Angus admitted. For the first time he told the judge of the money
he had borrowed from Braden. The old jurist whistled softly.
"What with that and the mortgage arrears, you are not in good shape, my
boy. If I were you, I should make every effort to get clear as soon as
possible."
"The hail hit me badly, but next year, with a good crop and all the new
land I have broken, I ought to be able to make a good payment. Then you
think nothing can be done to help Miss Winton?"
"Braden tried once to find a purchaser for part of it, and he may try
again." The judge's eyes twinkled. "In that case would you consider it
your duty to warn the intending purchaser?"
Angus grinned, flushing a little. "If it would help Miss Winton I would
consider it my duty to mind my own business."
"It seems to me about the only chance she has to get back part of the
money," said the judge. "While that chance exists, it is just as well to
say nothing to anybody."