The Fenians, feeling that they had to put their best foot foremost in
the presence of their prisoners, tried at first to maintain something
like military order in marching through the woods. They soon found,
however, that this was a difficult thing to do. Canadian forests are not
as trimly kept as English parks. Tim walked on ahead with the lantern,
but three times he tumbled over some obstruction, and disappeared
suddenly from view, uttering maledictions. His final effort in this
line was a triumph. He fell over the lantern and smashed it. When
all attempts at reconstruction failed, the party tramped on in
go-as-you-please fashion, and found they did better without the light
than with it. In fact, although it was not yet four o’clock, daybreak
was already filtering through the trees, and the woods were perceptibly
lighter.
“We must be getting near the camp,” said the captain.
“Will I shout, sir?” asked Murphy.
“No, no; we can’t miss it. Keep on as you are doing.”
They were nearer the camp than they suspected. As they blundered on
among the crackling underbrush and dry twigs the sharp report of a rifle
echoed through the forest, and a bullet whistled above their heads.
“Fat the divil are you foiring at, Mike Lynch?” cried the alderman, who
recognized the shooter, now rapidly falling back.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the sentry, stopping in his flight. The
captain strode angrily toward him.
“What do you mean by firing like that? Don’t you know enough to ask for
the counter-sign before shooting?”
“Sure, I forgot about it, captain, entirely. But, then, ye see, I never
can hit anything; so it’s little difference it makes.”
The shot had roused the camp, and there was now wild commotion,
everybody thinking the Canadians were upon them.
A strange sight met the eye of Yates and Renmark. Both were astonished
to see the number of men that O’Neill had under his command. They found
a motley crowd. Some tattered United States uniforms were among them,
but the greater number were dressed as ordinary individuals, although
a few had trimmings of green braid on their clothes. Sleeping out for
a couple of nights had given the gathering the unkempt appearance of a
great company of tramps. The officers were indistinguishable from the
men at first, but afterward Yates noticed that they, mostly in plain
clothes and slouch hats, had sword belts buckled around them; and one
or two had swords that had evidently seen service in the United States
cavalry.
“It’s all right, boys,” cried the captain to the excited mob. “It was
only that fool Lynch who fired at us. There’s nobody hurt. Where’s the
general?”
“Here he comes,” said half a dozen voices at once, and the crowd made
way for him.
General O’Neill was dressed in ordinary citizen’s costume, and did not
wear even a sword belt. On his head of light hair was a black soft felt
hat. His face was pale, and covered with freckles. He looked more like
a clerk from a grocery store than the commander of an army. He was
evidently somewhere between thirty-five and forty years of age.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Why are you back? Any news?”
The captain saluted, military fashion, and replied:
“We took two prisoners, sir. They were encamped in a tent in the woods.
One of them says he is an American citizen, and says he knows you, so I
brought them in.”
“I wish you had brought in the tent, too,” said the general with a wan
smile. “It would be an improvement on sleeping in the open air. Are
these the prisoners? I don’t know either of them.”
“The captain makes a mistake in saying that I claimed a personal
acquaintance with you, general. What I said was that you would
recognize, somewhat quicker than he did, who I was, and the desirability
of treating me with reasonable decency. Just show the general that
telegram you took from my coat pocket, captain.”
The paper was produced, and O’Neill read it over once or twice.
“You are on the New York _Argus_, then?”
“Very much so, general.”
“I hope you have not been roughly used?”
“Oh, no; merely tied up in a hard knot, and threatened with
shooting--that’s all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Still, you must make some allowance at a
time like this. If you will come with me, I will write you a pass which
will prevent any similar mistake happening in the future.” The general
led the way to a smoldering camp fire, where, out of a valise, he took
writing materials and, using the valise as a desk, began to write. After
he had written “Headquarters of the Grand Army of the Irish Republic”
he looked up, and asked Yates his Christian name. Being answered, he
inquired the name of his friend.
“I want nothing from you,” interposed Renmark. “Don’t put my name on the
paper.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Yates. “Never mind him, general. He’s a
learned man who doesn’t know when to talk and when not to. As you march
up to our tent, general, you will see an empty jug, which will explain
everything. Renmark’s drunk, not to put too fine a point upon it; and he
imagines himself a British subject.”
The Fenian general looked up at the professor.
“Are you a Canadian?” he asked.
“Certainly I am.”
“Well, in that case, if I let you leave camp, you must give me your word
that, should you fall in with the enemy, you will give no information
to them of our position, numbers, or of anything else you may have seen
while with us.”
“I shall not give my word. On the contrary, if I should fall in with the
Canadian troops, I will tell them where you are, that you are from eight
hundred to one thousand strong, and the worst looking set of vagabonds I
have ever seen out of jail.”
General O’Neill frowned, and looked from one to the other.
“Do you realize that you confess to being a spy, and that it becomes my
duty to have you taken out and shot?”
“In real war, yes. But this is mere idiotic fooling. All of you that
don’t escape will be either in jail or shot before twenty-four hours.”
“Well, by the gods, it won’t help _you_ any. I’ll have you shot inside
of ten minutes, instead of twenty-four hours.”
“Hold on, general, hold on!” cried Yates, as the angry man rose and
confronted the two. “I admit that he richly deserves shooting, if you
were the fool killer, which you are not. But it won’t do, I will be
responsible for him. Just finish that pass for me, and I will take care
of the professor. Shoot me if you like, but don’t touch him. He hasn’t
any sense, as you can see; but I am not to blame for that, nor are you.
If you take to shooting everybody who is an ass, general, you won’t have
any ammunition left with which to conquer Canada.”
The general smiled in spite of himself, and resumed the writing of the
pass. “There,” he said, handing the paper to Yates. “You see, we always
like to oblige the press. I will risk your belligerent friend, and I
hope you will exercise more control over him, if you meet the Canadians,
than you were able to exert here. Don’t you think, on the whole, you had
better stay with us? We are going to march in a couple of hours, when
the men have had a little rest.” He added in a lower voice, so that the
professor could not hear: “You didn’t see anything of the Canadians, I
suppose?”
“Not a sign. No, I don’t think I’ll stay. There will be five of our
fellows here some time to-day, I expect, and that will be more than
enough. I’m really here on a vacation. Been ordered rest and quiet. I’m
beginning to think I have made a mistake in location.”
Yates bade good-by to the commander, and walked with his friend out
of the camp. They threaded their way among sleeping men and groups of
stacked guns. On the top of one of the bayonets was hung a tall silk
hat, which looked most incongruous in such a place.
“I think,” said Yates, “that we will make for the Ridge Road, which must
lie somewhere in this direction. It will be easier walking than through
the woods; and, besides, I want to stop at one of the farmhouses and get
some breakfast. I’m as hungry as a bear after tramping so long.”
“Very well,” answered the professor shortly.
The two stumbled along until they reached the edge of the wood; then,
crossing some open fields, they came presently upon the road, near the
spot where the fist fight had taken place between Yates and Bartlett.
The comrades, now with greater comfort, walked silently along the road
toward the west, with the reddening east behind them. The whole scene
was strangely quiet and peaceful, and the recollection of the weird camp
they had left in the woods seemed merely a bad dream. The morning air
was sweet, and the birds were beginning to sing. Yates had intended to
give the professor a piece of his mind regarding the lack of tact
and common sense displayed by Renmark in the camp, but, somehow, the
scarcely awakened day did not lend itself to controversy, and the serene
stillness soothed his spirit. He began to whistle softly that popular
war song, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,” and then broke
in with the question:
“Say, Renny, did you notice that plug hat on the bayonet?”
“Yes,” answered the professor; “and I saw five others scattered around
the camp.”
“Jingo! you were observant. I can imagine nothing quite so ridiculous as
a man going to war in a tall silk hat.”
The professor made no reply, and Yates changed his whistling to “Rally
round the flag.”
“I presume,” he said at length, “there is little use in attempting to
improve the morning hour by trying to show you, Renmark, what a fool
you made of yourself in the camp? Your natural diplomacy seemed to be
slightly off the center.”
“I do not hold diplomatic relations with thieves and vagabonds.”
“They may be vagabonds; but so am I, for that matter. They may also be
well-meaning, mistaken men; but I do not think they are thieves.”
“While you were talking with the so-called general, one party came in
with several horses that had been stolen from the neighboring farmers,
and another party started out to get some more.”
“Oh, that isn’t stealing, Renmark; that’s requisitioning. You mustn’t
use such reckless language. I imagine the second party has been
successful; for here are three of them all mounted.”
The three horsemen referred to stopped their steeds at the sight of the
two men coming round the bend of the road, and awaited their approach.
Like so many of the others, they wore no uniform, but two of them held
revolvers in their hands ready for action. The one who had no
visible revolver moved his horse up the middle of the road toward the
pedestrians, the other two taking positions on each side of the wagon
way.
“Who are you? Where do you come from, and where are you going?” cried
the foremost horseman, as the two walkers came within talking distance.
“It’s all right, commodore,” said Yates jauntily, “and the top of the
morning to you. We are hungry pedestrians. We have just come from the
camp, and we are going to get something to eat.”
“I must have a more satisfactory answer than that.”
“Well, here you have it, then,” answered Yates, pulling out his folded
pass, and handing it up to the horseman. The man read it carefully. “You
find that all right, I expect?”
“Right enough to cause your immediate arrest.”
“But the general said we were not to be molested further. That is in his
own handwriting.”
“I presume it is, and all the worse for you. His handwriting does not
run quite as far as the queen’s writ in this country yet. I arrest you
in the name of the queen. Cover these men with your revolvers, and shoot
them down if they make any resistance.” So saying, the rider slipped
from his horse, whipped out of his pocket a pair of handcuffs joined
by a short, stout steel chain, and, leaving his horse standing, grasped
Renmark’s wrist.
“I’m a Canadian,” said the professor, wrenching his wrist away. “You
mustn’t put handcuffs on me.”
“You are in very bad company, then. I am a constable of this county; if
you are what you say, you will not resist arrest.”
“I will go with you, but you mustn’t handcuff me.”
“Oh, mustn’t I?” And, with a quick movement indicative of long practice
with resisting criminals, the constable deftly slipped on one of the
clasps, which closed with a sharp click and stuck like a burr.
Renmark became deadly pale, and there was a dangerous glitter in his
eyes. He drew back his clinched fist, in spite of the fact that the
cocked revolver was edging closer and closer to him, and the constable
held his struggling manacled hand with grim determination.
“Hold on!” cried Yates, preventing the professor from striking the
representative of the law. “Don’t shoot,” he shouted to the man on
horseback; “it is all a little mistake that will be quickly put right.
You are three armed and mounted men, and we are only two, unarmed and on
foot. There is no need of any revolver practice. Now, Renmark, you
are more of a rebel at the present moment than O’Neill. He owes no
allegiance, and you do. Have you no respect for the forms of law and
order? You are an anarchist at heart, for all your professions. You
_would_ sing ‘God save the Queen!’ in the wrong place a while ago, so
now be satisfied that you have got her, or, rather, that she has
got you. Now, constable, do you want to hitch the other end of that
arrangement on my wrist? or have you another pair for my own special
use?
“I’ll take your wrist, if you please.”
“All right; here you are.” Yates drew back his coat sleeve, and
presented his wrist. The dangling cuff was speedily clamped upon it. The
constable mounted the patient horse that stood waiting for him, watching
him all the while with intelligent eye. The two prisoners, handcuffed
together, took the middle of the road, with a horseman on each side
of them, the constable bringing up the rear; thus they marched on, the
professor gloomy from the indignity put upon them, and the newspaper man
as joyous as the now thoroughly awakened birds. The scouts concluded
to go no farther toward the enemy, but to return to the Canadian forces
with their prisoners. They marched down the road, all silent except
Yates, who enlivened the morning air with the singing of “John Brown.”
“Keep quiet,” said the constable curtly.
“All right, I will. But look here; we shall pass shortly the house of a
friend. We want to go and get something to eat.”
“You will get nothing to eat until I deliver you up to the officers of
the volunteers.”
“And where, may I ask, are they?”
“You may ask, but I will not answer.”
“Now, Renmark,” said Yates to his companion, “the tough part of this
episode is that we shall have to pass Bartlett’s house, and feast merely
on the remembrance of the good things which Mrs. Bartlett is always glad
to bestow on the wayfarer. I call that refined cruelty.”
As they neared the Bartlett homestead they caught sight of Miss Kitty on
the veranda, shading her eyes from the rising sun, and gazing earnestly
at the approaching squad. As soon as she recognized the group she
disappeared, with a cry, into the house. Presently there came out Mrs.
Bartlett, followed by her son, and more slowly by the old man himself.
They all came down to the gate and waited.
“Hello, Mrs. Bartlett!” cried Yates cheerily. “You see, the professor
has got his desserts at last; and I, being in bad company, share his
fate, like the good dog Tray.”
“What’s all this about?” cried Mrs. Bartlett.
The constable, who knew both the farmer and his wife, nodded familiarly
to them. “They’re Fenian prisoners,” he said.
“Nonsense!” cried Mrs. Bartlett--the old man, as usual, keeping his
mouth grimly shut when his wife was present to do the talking--“they’re
not Fenians. They’ve been camping on our farm for a week or more.”
“That may be,” said the constable firmly, “but I have the best of
evidence against them; and, if I’m not very much mistaken, they’ll hang
for it.”
Miss Kitty, who had been partly visible through the door, gave a cry of
anguish at this remark, and disappeared again.
“We have just escaped being hanged by the Fenians themselves, Mrs.
Bartlett, and I hope the same fate awaits us at the hands of the
Canadians.”
“What! hanging?”
“No, no; just escaping. Not that I object to being hanged,--I hope I am
not so pernickety as all that,--but, Mrs. Bartlett, you will sympathize
with me when I tell you that the torture I am suffering from at this
moment is the remembrance of the good things to eat which I have had
in your house. I am simply starved to death, Mrs. Bartlett, and this
hard-hearted constable refuses to allow me to ask you for anything.”
Mrs. Bartlett came out through the gate to the road in a visible state
of indignation.
“Stoliker,” she exclaimed, “I’m ashamed of you! You may hang a man if
you like, but you have no right to starve him. Come straight in with
me,” she said to the prisoners.
“Madam,” said Stoliker severely, “you must not interfere with the course
of the law.”
“The course of stuff and nonsense!” cried the angry woman. “Do you think
I am afraid of you, Sam Stoliker? Haven’t I chased you out of this very
orchard when you were a boy trying to steal my apples? Yes, and boxed
your ears, too, when I caught you, and then was fool enough to fill your
pockets with the best apples on the place, after giving you what you
deserved. Course of the law, indeed! I’ll box your ears now if you
say anything more. Get down off your horse, and have something to eat
yourself. I dare say you need it.”
“This is what I call a rescue,” whispered Yates to his linked companion.
What is a stern upholder of the law to do when the interferer with
justice is a determined and angry woman accustomed to having her own
way? Stoliker looked helplessly at Hiram, as the supposed head of the
house, but the old man merely shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say:
“You see how it is yourself. I am helpless.”
Mrs. Bartlett marched her prisoners through the gate and up to the
house.
“All I ask of you now,” said Yates, “is that you will give Renmark and
me seats together at the table. We cannot bear to be separated, even for
an instant.”
Having delivered her prisoners to the custody of her daughter, at the
same time admonishing her to get breakfast as quickly as possible, Mrs.
Bartlett went to the gate again. The constable was still on his horse.
Hiram had asked, by way of treating him to a noncontroversial subject,
if this was the colt he had bought from old Brown, on the second
concession, and Stoliker had replied that it was. Hiram was saying he
thought he recognized the horse by his sire when Mrs. Bartlett broke in
upon them.
“Come, Sam,” she said, “no sulking, you know. Slip off the horse and
come in. How’s your mother?”
“She’s pretty well, thank you,” said Sam sheepishly, coming down on his
feet again.
Kitty Bartlett, her gayety gone and her eyes red, waited on the
prisoners, but absolutely refused to serve Sam Stoliker, on whom she
looked with the utmost contempt, not taking into account the fact that
the poor young man had been merely doing his duty, and doing it well.
“Take off these handcuffs, Sam,” said Mrs. Bartlett, “until they have
breakfast, at least.”
Stoliker produced a key and unlocked the manacles, slipping them into
his pocket.
“Ah, now!” said Yates, looking at his red wrist, “we can breathe easier;
and I, for one, can eat more.”
The professor said nothing. The iron had not only encircled his wrist,
but had entered his soul as well. Although Yates tried to make the early
meal as cheerful as possible, it was rather a gloomy festival. Stoliker
began to feel, poor man, that the paths of duty were unpopular. Old
Hiram could always be depended upon to add somberness and taciturnity to
a wedding feast; the professor, never the liveliest of companions, sat
silent, with clouded brow, and vexed even the cheerful Mrs. Bartlett
by having evidently no appetite. When the hurried meal was over, Yates,
noticing that Miss Kitty had left the room, sprang up and walked toward
the kitchen door. Stoliker was on his feet in an instant, and made as
though to follow him.
“Sit down,” said the professor sharply, speaking for the first time. “He
is not going to escape. Don’t be afraid. He has done nothing, and has no
fear of punishment. It is always the innocent that you stupid officials
arrest. The woods all around you are full of real Fenians, but you take
excellent care to keep out of their way, and give your attention to
molesting perfectly inoffensive people.”
“Good for you, professor!” cried Mrs. Bartlett emphatically. “That’s the
truth, if ever it was spoken. But are there Fenians in the woods?”
“Hundreds of them. They came on us in the tent about three o’clock
this morning,--or at least an advance guard did,--and after talking of
shooting us where we stood they marched us to the Fenian camp instead.
Yates got a pass, written by the Fenian general, so that we should not
be troubled again. That is the precious document which this man thinks
is deadly evidence. He never asked us a question, but clapped the
handcuffs on our wrists, while the other fools held pistols to our
heads.”
“It isn’t my place to ask questions,” retorted Stoliker doggedly. “You
can tell all this to the colonel or the sheriff; if they let you go,
I’ll say nothing against it.”
Meanwhile, Yates had made his way into the kitchen, taking the
precaution to shut the door after him. Kitty Bartlett looked quickly
round as the door closed. Before she could speak the young man caught
her by the plump shoulders--a thing which he certainly had no right to
do.
“Miss Kitty Bartlett,” he said, “you’ve been crying.”
“I haven’t; and if I had, it is nothing to you.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Don’t deny it. For whom were you
crying? The professor?”
“No, nor for you either, although I suppose you have conceit enough to
think so.”
“_Me_ conceited? Anything but that. Come, now, Kitty, for whom were you
crying? I must know.”
“Please let me go, Mr. Yates,” said Kitty, with an effort at dignity.
“Dick is my name, Kit.”
“Well, mine is not Kit.
“You’re quite right. Now that you mention it, I will call you Kitty,
which is much prettier than the abbreviation.”
“I did not ‘mention it.’ Please let me go. Nobody has the right to call
me anything but Miss Bartlett; that is, _you_ haven’t, anyhow.”
“Well, Kitty, don’t you think it is about time to give somebody the
right? Why won’t you look up at me, so that I can tell for sure whether
I should have accused you of crying? Look up--Miss Bartlett.”
“Please let me go, Mr. Yates. Mother will be here in a minute.”
“Mother is a wise and thoughtful woman. We’ll risk mother. Besides, I’m
not in the least afraid of her, and I don’t believe you are. I think
she is at this moment giving poor Mr. Stoliker a piece of her mind;
otherwise, I imagine, he would have followed me. I saw it in his eye.”
“I hate that man,” said Kitty inconsequently.
“I like him, because he brought me here, even if I was handcuffed.
Kitty, why don’t you look up at me? Are you afraid?”
“What should I be afraid of?” asked Kitty, giving him one swift glance
from her pretty blue eyes. “Not of you, I hope.”
“Well, Kitty, I sincerely hope not. Now, Miss Bartlett, do you know why
I came out here?”
“For something more to eat, very likely,” said the girl mischievously.
“Oh, I say, that to a man in captivity is both cruel and unkind.
Besides, I had a first-rate breakfast, thank you. No such motive drew
me into the kitchen. But I will tell you. You shall have it from my own
lips. _That_ was the reason!”
He suited the action to the word, and kissed her before she knew what
was about to happen. At least, Yates, with all his experience, thought
he had taken her unawares. Men often make mistakes in little matters of
this kind. Kitty pushed him with apparent indignation from her, but
she did not strike him across the face, as she had done before, when he
merely attempted what he had now accomplished. Perhaps this was because
she had been taken so completely by surprise.
“I shall call my mother,” she threatened.
“Oh, no, you won’t. Besides, she wouldn’t come.” Then this frivolous
young man began to sing in a low voice the flippant refrain, “Here’s to
the girl that gets a kiss, and runs and tells her mother,” ending with
the wish that she should live and die an old maid and never get another.
Kitty should not have smiled, but she did; she should have rebuked his
levity, but she didn’t.
“It is about the great and disastrous consequences of living and
dying an old maid that I want to speak to you. I have a plan for the
prevention of such a catastrophe, and I would like to get your approval
of it.”
Yates had released the girl, partly because she had wrenched herself
away from him, and partly because he heard a movement in the dining
room, and expected the entrance of Stoliker or some of the others.
Miss Kitty stood with her back to the table, her eyes fixed on a spring
flower, which she had unconsciously taken from a vase standing on the
window-ledge. She smoothed the petals this way and that, and seemed so
interested in botanical investigation that Yates wondered whether she
was paying attention to what he was saying or not. What his plan might
have been can only be guessed; for the Fates ordained that they should
be interrupted at this critical moment by the one person on earth who
could make Yates’ tongue falter.
The outer door to the kitchen burst open, and Margaret Howard stood on
the threshold, her lovely face aflame with indignation, and her dark
hair down over her shoulders, forming a picture of beauty that fairly
took Yates’ breath away. She did not notice him.
“O Kitty,” she cried, “those wretches have stolen all our horses! Is
your father here?”
“What wretches?” asked Kitty, ignoring the question, and startled by the
sudden advent of her friend.
“The Fenians. They have taken all the horses that were in the fields,
and your horses as well. So I ran over to tell you.”
“Have they taken your own horse, too?”
“No. I always keep Gypsy in the stable. The thieves did not come near
the house. Oh, Mr. Yates! I did not see you.” And Margaret’s hand, with
the unconscious vanity of a woman, sought her disheveled hair, which
Yates thought too becoming ever to be put in order again.
Margaret reddened as she realized, from Kitty’s evident embarrassment,
that she had impulsively broken in upon a conference of two.
“I must tell your father about it,” she said hurriedly, and before Yates
could open the door she had done so for herself. Again she was taken
aback to see so many sitting round the table.
There was a moment’s silence between the two in the kitchen, but the
spell was broken.
“I--I don’t suppose there will be any trouble about getting back the
horses,” said Yates hesitatingly. “If you lose them, the Government will
have to pay.”
“I presume so,” answered Kitty coldly; then: “Excuse me, Mr. Yates; I
mustn’t stay here any longer.” So saying, she followed Margaret into the
other room.
Yates drew a long breath of relief. All his old difficulties of
preference had arisen when the outer door burst open. He felt that he
had had a narrow escape, and began to wonder if he had really committed
himself. Then the fear swept over him that Margaret might have noticed
her friend’s evident confusion, and surmised its cause. He wondered
whether this would help him or hurt him with Margaret, if he finally
made up his mind to favor her with his serious attentions. Still, he
reflected that, after all, they were both country girls, and would no
doubt be only too eager to accept a chance to live in New York. Thus
his mind gradually resumed its normal state of self-confidence; and he
argued that, whatever Margaret’s suspicions were, they could not but
make him more precious in her eyes. He knew of instances where the very
danger of losing a man had turned a woman’s wavering mind entirely
in the man’s favor. When he had reached this point, the door from the
dining room opened, and Stoliker appeared.
“We are waiting for you,” said the constable.
“All right. I am ready.”
As he entered the room he saw the two girls standing together talking
earnestly.
“I wish I was a constable for twenty-four hours,” cried Mrs. Bartlett.
“I would be hunting horse thieves instead of handcuffing innocent men.”
“Come along,” said the impassive Stoliker, taking the handcuffs from his
pocket.
“If you three men,” continued Mrs. Bartlett, “cannot take those two to
camp, or to jail, or anywhere else, without handcuffing them, I’ll go
along with you myself and protect you, and see that they don’t escape.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sam Stoliker, if you have any
manhood about you--which I doubt.”
“I must do my duty.”
The professor rose from his chair. “Mr. Stoliker,” he said with
determination, “my friend and myself will go with you quietly. We will
make no attempt to escape, as we have done nothing to make us fear
investigation. But I give you fair warning that if you attempt to put a
handcuff on my wrist again I will smash you.”
A cry of terror from one of the girls, at the prospect of a fight,
caused the professor to realize where he was. He turned to them and said
in a contrite voice:
“Oh! I forgot you were here. I sincerely beg your pardon.”
Margaret, with blazing eyes, cried:
“Don’t beg my pardon, but--smash him.”
Then a consciousness of what she had said overcame her, and the excited
girl hid her blushing face on her friend’s shoulder, while Kitty
lovingly stroked her dark, tangled hair.
Renmark took a step toward them, and stopped. Yates, with his usual
quickness, came to the rescue, and his cheery voice relieved the tension
of the situation.
“Come, come, Stoliker, don’t be an idiot. I do not object in the least
to the handcuffs; and, if you are dying to handcuff somebody, handcuff
me. It hasn’t struck your luminous mind that you have not the first
tittle of evidence against my friend, and that, even if I were the
greatest criminal in America, the fact of his being with me is no crime.
The truth is, Stoliker, that I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a good
many dollars. You talk a great deal about doing your duty, but you have
exceeded it in the case of the professor. I hope you have no property;
for the professor can, if he likes, make you pay sweetly for putting the
handcuffs on him without a warrant, or even without one jot of evidence.
What is the penalty for false arrest, Hiram?” continued Yates, suddenly
appealing to the old man. “I think it is a thousand dollars.”
Hiram said gloomily that he didn’t know. Stoliker was hit on a tender
spot, for he owned a farm.
“Better apologize to the professor and let us get along. Good-by, all.
Mrs. Bartlett, that breakfast was the very best I ever tasted.”
The good woman smiled and shook hands with him.
“Good-by, Mr. Yates; and I hope you will soon come back to have
another.”
Stoliker slipped the handcuffs into his pocket again, and mounted his
horse. The girls, from the veranda, watched the procession move up the
dusty road. They were silent, and had even forgotten the exciting event
of the stealing of the horses.